Comment

Comment by Alexandra Elbakyan on April 14, 2011 at 11:33pm

A cell-phone-based brain–computer interface for communication in daily life

researchers from the University of California in San Diego have developed a Bluetooth device that allows the wearer to dial a phone by concentrating on the numbers they would normally just input manually. Their experimental device was the subject of a recent study, published in the Journal of Neural Engineering [source]

Comment by Brendan Allison on April 14, 2011 at 1:28pm

Hello,

 

@Alexandra: Yes, I will speak there. I was also a speaker at their 2008 conference, which was very well organized. I definitely recommend their conference next month!

Comment by Alexandra Elbakyan on April 14, 2011 at 1:09pm

@Brendan: so are you speaking at the BCI in 2011 and 8th BCI2000 workshop: Early Registration Deadline A...?

Comment by Nasir Raza Awan on April 8, 2011 at 11:47am

Great work Alexandra. It's a beautiful group that you've started here, something I've been following from the day of its inception. (I'm one of the first members of your group and was the first one to post here!)

 

As a functional neurosurgeon having been actively involved with DBS implantation, I would tend to agree with Alexandra that, in its strictest sense, DBS is *not* a BMI. (Sorry Pratik!) Yes, it does modulate neuronal activity by induced currents but that is not a two-way interaction.

 

Of the four references in Alexandra's comment below, the first one is a paper in Neurosurgical Focus. Although it's a neurosurgical journal, July 2009 issue was dedicated to BMIs and I also had a paper published on DBS in the same issue. (http://thejns.org/doi/full/10.3171/2009.4.FOCUS0982) In the final section of the paper, (DBS and BMIs) this distinction between the two is emphasized. DBS electrodes as we have them today, can only constitute a part of the BMIs and should be differentiated from BMIs till the development of such electroded which can record as well as stimulate, based on the recording - a true "pace maker". That kind would be much closer to the definition of a BMI.

 

Congratulations on getting 100 people on board!  :-) 

Comment by Alexandra Elbakyan on April 6, 2011 at 11:27pm

In reply to Pratik

My opinion here is:

1 DBS implant is not communication but modulation channel
2 To include the whole nervous system, perhaps "direct neural interface" fits the best
3 If DBS is not called BMI in the literature, we cannot say it is BMI in a strict sense, regardless of similarities between these technologies.

Anyway, I found a number of references where DBS is assumed to be a type of BMI (here, here, here and here) so perhaps we can say DBS is BMI in a strict sense.

Comment by Alexandra Elbakyan on April 6, 2011 at 10:31pm

Our group has reached 100 members today!

Comment by Pratik Yashvant Chhatbar on April 6, 2011 at 8:25pm

In reply to: 'Comment by Alexandra Elbakyan on April 1, 2011 at 11:00pm'

 

If I look at the definition of a BMI in strict sense, I would classify DBS technology for Parkinsonian/OCD patients as BMI - as this DBS implant serves as a communication channel to the brain.. I actually would extend the definition of BMI to include not only the brain but whole nervous system, so that peripheral nerve implants (like vagal nerve, for depression and slanted Utah array for peripheral nerve stimulation) also get included in 'BMI'.. What does everyone think?

Comment by Alexandra Elbakyan on April 5, 2011 at 1:55pm

GOOD NEWS for invasive BCI folks here "A tetraplegia patient with an implanted brain-computer interface was able to control a computer cursor accurately through neural activity alone more than 1,000 days after receiving the implant..." read

Comment by Brendan Allison on April 2, 2011 at 6:48am

Hello all, I have some important news for this board. To my knowledge, this is the first public posting of this information, which I have been authorized to publicly release by the European Commission.

 

The EC has decided that there will be no funding for BCI research in the remainder of the Seventh Framework Programme, and also none at all in the Eighth Framework! They also informed me that the roadmap that we are developing for the European Commission through our FBNCI project is the *only way* this might change. This could influence funding decisions on the scale of at least the high tens of millions of euros. Funding decisions that impact many BCI related fields (some of which will also get cut) and decisions by other funding entities. Funding decisions that could dramatically affect our beloved research field and many of our careers.

 

Do not kill the messenger. I am not responsible for this decision and think it would be unwise. I am working against it through our roadmap. Since receiving this news a month ago during our meeting in Brussels, I have been averaging 105 hours a week on the roadmap. My team has also been working heroically. There are hence many portions of the roadmap on our website on the roadmap tab, so we’re now ready to engage people. Comments and endorsements would be nice, but what we really need are contributions. FBNCI is a small and underfunded project. Our contract with the European Commission specifies what the roadmap will address, and it focuses mainly on conventional BCIs as defined in the literature (e.g., Wolpaw et al., 2002 and Pfurtscheller et al., 2010).

 

This means that the only way our roadmap will adequately address neurotechnologies that are not BCIs is with outside contributions. The EC also instructed me to contact broader groups and try to solicit their help by telling them that this roadmap will be the deciding factor in their funding decisions. If you'd like to contribute, please visit our website and check out what we developed already and email me. Thanks!!

 

 

Dr. Brendan Allison

Graz University of Technology

Future BNCI Project Coordinator

Comment by Abdulrahman J Sabbagh on April 2, 2011 at 6:11am

agree

May be BCMI, because the interface ib between the brain and computer and then to Machine (implant)

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