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["Melody O." <melody AT crecon.com>]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4396387.stm

Brain chip reads man's thoughts  
 
The 'chip' reads brain signals 
A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a
brain chip that reads his mind. 
Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a
wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001. 

The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last
summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone. 

The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to
decipher. 

Mind over matter 

He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks
to the technology and software linked to devices in his home. 

Scientists have been working for some time to devise a way to enable
paralysed people to control devices with the brain. 

Studies have shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes
implanted into their brain. 

Recently four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, were
able to move a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes that
pick up brain waves. 

Mr Nagle's device, called BrainGate, consists of nearly 100 hair-thin
electrodes implanted a millimetre deep into part of the motor cortex of his
brain that controls movement. 

Wires feed the information from the electrodes into a computer which
analyses the brain signals. 

The signals are interpreted and translated into cursor movements, offering
the user an alternative way to control devices such as a computer with
thought. 

Motor control 

Professor John Donoghue, an expert on neuroscience at Brown University,
Rhode Island, is the scientist behind the device produced by Cyberkinetics. 

He said: "The computer screen is basically a TV remote control panel, and
in order to indicate a selection he merely has to pass the cursor over an
icon, and that's equivalent to a click when he goes over that icon." 

Mr Nagle has also been able to use thought to move a prosthetic hand and
robotic arm to grab sweets from one person's hand and place them into
another. 

Professor Donoghue hopes that ultimately implants such as this will allow
people with paralysis to regain the use of their limbs. 

The long term aim is to design a package the size of a mobile phone that
will run on batteries, and to electrically stimulate the patient's own
muscles. 

This will be difficult. 

The simple movements we take for granted in fact involve complex electrical
signals which will be hard to replicate, Dr Richard Apps, a
neurophysiologist from Bristol University, the UK, told the BBC News website. 

He said there were millions of neurones in the brain involved with
movement. The brain chip taps into only a very small number of these. 

But he said the work was extremely exciting. 

"It's quite remarkable. They have taken research to the next stage to have
a clear benefit for a patient that otherwise would not be able to move. 

"It seems that they have cracked the crucial step and arguably the most
challenging step to get hand movements. 

"Just to be able to grasp an object is a major step forward." 

He said it might be possible to hone this further to achieve finer
movements of the hand. 

Matthew Nagel's story is featured in a Frontiers programme on BBC Radio
Four on Wednesday 13 April, 2005, at 2100 BST. 

 

"…It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless
minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds…." Samuel Adams