2. Introduction to Brain Machine Interfaces (BMI)
• The CNS and how it communicates
• CNS damage and repair
• Brain Machine interactions
• BMI Technology
• Neuralink
• Future Roadmaps
• Ethical Implications
3. Learning Objectives
• Explain the function of the central nervous system (CNS) and how it works.
• Identify the diseases and pathologies where signaling from the brain to the body is interrupted/cutoff, resulting in
conditions such as paralysis.
• Discuss the reasons why the CNS is not very good at healing itself, making paralysis and similar conditions difficult
to treat.
• Understand the concept of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and their potential applications in various fields such
as medical, gaming, entertainment, education, communication, military, and business.
• Differentiate between the three types of BCIs based on their degree of invasiveness: invasive, non-invasive, and
semi-invasive, and their respective advantages and disadvantages.
• Discuss Neuralink's mission to develop fully implantable, wireless, and highly functional brain-machine interface
devices that can help people with various neurological conditions and their unique approach to BCI technology.
• Recognize potential ethical, societal, and privacy concerns with brain implant technology and the need for
regulatory frameworks and guidelines for responsible and transparent use of BCI technology.
4. The CNS and
how it works
• The CNS receives sensory inputs, processes them,
and send motor outputs.
• The nervous system uses electrical signals to
transmit information
• The Brain is the central processor for higher order
thinking, memory and emotion.
5. CNS Injury and disease
• Injury or disease can
interrupt the connection
between the CNS and the
rest of the body, which
can result in a loss of
function
• The CNS is not very good
at healing itself. This
makes CNS damage very
serious and permanent.
6. Brain Signal Measurement
• Common non-invasive techniques: EEG, MAG, fMRI
• Signals are prone to interference
• Precise location is hard to determine
fMRI machine
fMRI images
7. Invasive methods:
Brain Machine
Interface
• BCI is directly implanted into
brain tissue
• Uses small needles called
micro-electrodes
• Very high spatial resolution
• High risk of infection,
bleeding, tissue damage.
• Neurosurgical procedure is
very risky
8. Recap
• The body communicates via electrical signals
• CNS damage can be irreparable
• Brain signals are hard to detect
• Invasive BCI offers the fastest and most accurate
measurements
• Restoring lost function could be possible using BCI
9. and BCI technology
• Significantly more electrodes
• Wireless capability for both
charging and information transfer
• Advanced brain signal processing
algorithms
10. Neuralink
Surgery
• Surgical Robot for electrode insertion
• Faster and more reliable than human
• Significantly reduces surgery cost and risk
11. Animal Models Success
Control of on-screen keyboard
Real time gameplay of “Pong”
• Accurate signal detection and processing
• Output signals have also been successfully
demonstrated in pigs
• Very promising results and high hopes
going into Human Trials
Pig hind-leg contraction induced by artificial signal
Computer
model of Pig leg
12. The future of BCI
and Ethical concerns
• Curing blindness
• Connecting the brain to phone
and internet
• Dangers of Surgery and device
malfunction
• Manipulation, privacy, unfair
advantage?
Editor's Notes
Welcome to today’s FOBS1111 Lecture, my name is Professor Angelo Gunther and I will be your module leader for this term.
You can find my contact details on the first slide and I would like ask you to post any questions on the Minerva Q and A, rather than emailing me personally so that other students can also learn from your questions, thank you very much.
Today's lecture will focus on the cutting-edge science of brain machine interfaces (BMI for short).
Here is a quick overview of the lecture:
We will begin with the basics of the central nervous system (CNS), as well as how it works and operates. We will then look at CNS damage through disease and injury, and why this can be so devastating.
We will then look at how technology could interact with our CNS and potentially re-establish some of the lost functions.
We will then take a look at specific examples of past attempt at BCI and focus on one of the companies currently leading the research in this area. A company some of you may have already heard about called Neuralink.
We then take a look at where we stand today with some amazing achievements already, as well as what the future roadmap looks like.
Finally, I invite you all to have a think for yourself about the potential ethical implications and concerns such technology brings with it.
I have also added some LO so you know what is most important to revise for the exam.
So, without further ado, lets jump right in.
Here is a quick overview of the lecture:
We will begin with the basics of the central nervous system (CNS), as well as how it works and operates. We will then look at CNS damage through disease and injury, and why this can be so devastating.
We will then look at how technology could interact with our CNS and potentially re-establish some of the lost functions.
We will then take a look at specific examples of past attempt at BCI and focus on one of the companies currently leading the research in this area. A company some of you may have already heard about called Neuralink.
We then take a look at where we stand today with some amazing achievements already, as well as what the future roadmap looks like.
Finally, I invite you all to have a think for yourself about the potential ethical implications and concerns such technology brings with it.
I have also added some LO so you know what is most important to revise for the exam.
So, without further ado, lets jump right in.
Ah yes, and before I forget, I have included some Learning Objectives for you here so that when you come back you will know what to focus on for your revision.
The central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS) make up the two major divisions of the nervous system, as can be seen here on the left.
The PNS includes all the nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord. It is responsible for connecting the CNS to the rest of the body, allowing the body to respond to the environment.
The nervous system uses electrical signals, called action potentials, to transmit information throughout the body.
These action potentials are generated by specialized cells called neurons, which are the building blocks of the nervous system.
The CNS includes the brain and spinal cord, which are responsible for processing and coordinating sensory input and motor output.
The brain is the control center of the body and is responsible for higher-order thinking, memory, and emotion, while the spinal cord acts as a pathway for transmitting sensory information from the body to the brain and motor commands from the brain to the muscles, as illustrated here on the right.
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When the CNS is injured, the communication between the brain and the rest of the body can be disrupted, leading to a range of physical and mental impairments. Injuries to the CNS can result from trauma, such as a car accident, or disease, such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's disease.
Here on the right, we can see a diagram that illustrates various degrees of loss of function. The colored lines indicate the expected severity of loss of function
If the spinal cord suffers from severe enough damage at the red line here, the individual will most likely lose control of both their arms and legs, also known as quadriplegia.
If, however, an injury cuts off the spinal cord at a lower level, such as here indicated with the orange line, we would expect a loss of function from the hips downward, which is known as paraplegia.
It is important to note that the CNS has a limited ability to heal itself compared to other parts of the body.
While a broken bone can often heal on its own, without proper medical treatment,
Individuals with severe injuries to the CNS may not be able to recover fully, such as the case in many people with paralysis.
This means that individuals with CNS injuries or diseases may require long-term medical care, rehabilitation, and ongoing support to manage their symptoms and maintain their quality of life.
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#
Now let us look at the central nervuus system in a little more detail and try to understand how we would go about measuring these signals:
There are different ways to pick up brain signals, including non-invasive methods, where no surgery is needed and invasive methods, where surgery is required. In general, these methods require both a measuring device and a computer to interpret the data for us. We have therefore smartly dubbed this the Brain-Computer-Interface!
Non-invasive techniques include methods such as electroencephalography or EEG for short, magnetoencephalography MEG, and functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI for short.
Don’t worry about these complicated names, all you need to know is that these methods measure the electrical or magnetic fields our brains create when we think or do things.
Non-invasive methods are safer and easier to use, but they have some drawbacks. For example, the signals they pick up can be weak and easily messed up by other sources of noise.
Non-invasive BCIs use sensors placed on the scalp to measure brain activity . These methods are less risky and less expensive than invasive BCIs. However, non-invasive BCIs have lower spatial and temporal resolution than invasive BCIs, which means determining exactly where and when things are happening can be little fuzzy. This makes it difficult to precisely record and stimulate neural activity. Here on the bottom right we can see the kind of data we get from an fMRI, very pretty, but also a little too general if we want to be making precise predictions about what a specific signal is communicating exactly.
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In an attempt to obtain more accurate readings of brain signals, we have developed more invasive methods where we basically take direct measurements from within the brain.
Invasive methods have some advantages over non-invasive ones. Primarily that we can pick up brain activity more accurately and quickly, without being affected by other signals or noise.
However, these methods come with their own risks, like the need for complicated neuro-surgery (where many things can go wrong such a a high risk of infection, bleeding or geenral tissue damage). Of course not to mention the ethical concerns of implanting devices into people's brains and potential malfuncitons..
If we look at the diagram here on the right we can see that invasive BCIs use microelectrodes, which are tiny wires, to record and stimulate neural activity.
It is impotant to note that BCI devices have come a long way, with iterative imrpovements to make the devices smaller, safer, and more comfortable for the patient.
It is at this point I would like to just quickly re-cap what we have learned so far, as well as summarize the key problems facing us today:
So, The body communicates using electrical signals via the central and peripheral nervous system.
Our brain is the main control center, where all information is processed and decisions are made.
Severe Central nervous system injuries and diseases are very difficult if not impossible to heal, often resulting in a substantial loss of quality of life.
In an attempt to better understand the brains signals we have developed improved methods of brain signal detection.
Modern techniques include the Brain-Computer-Interface, which is our attempt at reading brain signals with high accuracy and low latency.
Now you may ask, what exactly can we even do with these “brain Signals” and why is it so important that we get such accurate readings!? And that is an excellent question!
The brain is constantly producing signals and that data can often look very messy and confusing. If we want to be able to make clear readings we need highly accurate readings, but also a very smart way of identifying if these brain signals are you lifting your left arm or right foot!
The idea is that, if we can detect a specific signal related to a specific function such as moving your foot. We can send that signal to the target muscle by circumventing the severed connection, potentially restoring any lost function.
There are, however, a number of hurdles we must overcome before successfully restoring lost functions such as walking in people with paralysis.
Signals are very messy and complex, we must interpret them correctly, so we know which signal is communicating which kind of information.
Implanting devices straight into the body’s most crucial and sensitive organ is truly a very difficult and dangerous task.
We want to minimize risk by requiring as few surgeries as possible. This means we want long lasting devices, preferably upgradeable, which do not expose the brain to the outside world.
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CNS
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That brings us to One of todays leading companies attempting to solve Brain Computer Interfaces, Elon Musks Neuralink
They have been leading the frontier of BCI technology and are currently looking for FDA approval for human trials in the US!
Neuralinks BCI is revolutionary for a number of reasons:
Here on the left we can see their newest chip design. It consists of a battery, a tiny computer, and thousands of wires (electrodes) thinner than a human hair.
Their chip has 10x more electrodes than past devices, which only had around 200-300.
The Chip is fully implantable – which means there is minimal contact between the brain the the outside.
The chip can be wirelessly charged and even updated, making it very future proof.
As we can see here on the bottom, the vast amounts of recordings are analyzed by a very sophisticated program to determine what the intended output is. This program even learns and adapts as it is trained with more and more information form the user.
(Neuralink has developed very advanced algorithm that are very good at interpreting the brain signal data, and they even adapt to the user.)
With this cutting edge technology, the goal is to detect the brain signals for leg movement and circumvent the damaged section of the spinal cord, to allow patients to regain control and walk again.
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If all this wasn’t enough Neuralink have developed their own surgery robot. This is truly groundbreaking!
Here on the left we can see how this device looks like.
The Neuro-surgery required to implant the BCI is one of the largest difficulties to overcome.
Both an extreme amount of precision and speed are required to execute the surgery safely.
Nueralinks surgery robot uses advanced video processing to avoid any critical blood vessels when inserting the micro-electrodes.
It does so in less time and more precisely and than traditional neuro-surgeons can.
Here on the right we can see a demo of a needle inserting the various electrodes.
The N1 device has already been successfully implanted in pigs and monkeys.
To demonstrate how accurate and fast the device works, Neuralink demonstrates a Macaque monkey using an on-screen keyboard as well as playing the video game “Pong” in real time, using just its brain!
As for demonstrating their progress towards curing paralysis, on the right we see a pig than has been outfitted with both a Neuralink device, as well as a number of chips on its leg muscles. This demonstrates not only how accurate their digital model of the leg is but they even demonstrate a successful signal transmission where the induce a hind-leg contraction with an artificial signal.
All quite remarkably really!
Now let us take a look at the exciting progress neuralink has already made in their animal trials.
The implanted device has been demonstrated to work for both the control of an on-screen keyboard for typing as well as the real.time control of the video game "Pong". As can be seen on the bottom left here.
These trials not only show that the signals are being interpreted very accurately but also that they can be transmitted accurately very quickly.
On the right, we can see a pig and a computer model of the pigs hind-leg. This deomnstration showed us Neuralinks progress towards curing paralysis by using the data they have gotten from the pig itself when it was walking, to then induce hind-leg contraction acrtifically. They do so by having a second set of devices on the pigs leg that can transmit a signal directly into the muscles.
This demonstartes just how good their models and devices are getting. Let us now look at future goals and implications of this technology.
With human trials currently being approved the hopes for this technology are very high. Neuralink aims to not only heal people who are paralysed but also in the future also intend to restore vision to blind people.
Elon Musk has even gone as far as to predict that we will one day use this technology to ineract with our phones and the internet directly, basically upgrading our current abilities.
Now this all sounds like science fiction for now but let us have a think about the potential ethical problems here: First lets focus on the current research. The brain is arguably one of our most vital and sensitive organ and any form of damage is critical. BCI implantation must therefore be treated with absolute care. Any malfunction coul also pose a serious risk for the patient.
As for potential abuse and ethical concerns, some worry that brain implants could be used for coercive or manipulative purposes, such as by governments or corporations seeking to exert control over individuals.
Others have raised questions about the ethics of conducting invasive procedures on human subjects, particularly those who may not fully understand the potential risks and benefits.
Given these concerns, there has been a growing call for ethical guidelines and regulatory frameworks to ensure that brain implant technology is developed and used in a responsible and transparent manner.
This includes ongoing dialogue between stakeholders, including researchers, policymakers, and members of the public, to establish best practices and guidelines for the responsible use of brain implant technology.
I invite you to have a think for yourself about the potential risks and benefits of such a technology.
Thank you very much for your time, I hope you enjoyed todays lecture on the exciting field of BCI and the current developments.
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