An Introduction to Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs)
When we think back to the state of technology a decade or two ago, it wasn’t clear how drastically personal computing would change our lives.
Today, the distance between humans and technology is still on an upward trending curve that is difficult for us to predict. In the pursuit of less friction between computers and humans — what could the solutions look like in the future?
Lately, I’ve done some research about Brain-Computer Interfaces. In short, a brain-computer interface (BCI) is a direct communication pathway between a brain and an external device. It’s still very early days for BCIs, however, it has become a hot topic with the increasing focus on mental illnesses.
This article is an introduction to how BCI’s work, how they are being applied today, and some of the future use-cases that people are imagining. As I am a novice in this field, my hope is simply that my notes can help others who are intellectually curious about the topic as well.
From 1970s to Today
Originally, research on BCIs began in the 1970s at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) under a grant from the National Science Foundation. DARPA partly funded the research as well, because of the potential applications within the military such as enhancing mental capabilities and giving control of inanimate objects. Think Avatar but without the blue elves.
Fast forward 40 years, BCIs haven’t been implemented widely in the military, yet researchers have applied the technology in the medical field for people with neurological disorders such as Parkinson. Within the most recent years, entrepreneurs, mainly from California, have begun to explore how BCIs can be applied to everyone with the objective of augmenting the fundamental human experience.
How Does a BCI Work
Your brain cells communicate by sending tiny electric signals to each other. The more signals that are sent, the more electricity the brain will produce. Using an EEG, an invention in 1924 by Hans Berger, it is possible to measure the brain activity from electrodes placed on the scalp. This is called a non-invasive BCI as its outside of the human body.
The use of BCI’s (both non-invasive and invasive) is both to passively monitor your brains activity, but also in some cases actively influence your brains mental condition. Invasive BCIs are more accurate in monitoring the brains activity, as its sensors are closer to the source of the signal, hence minimizing the potential noise. Although invasive BCIs are more accurate, they have been less widely used as the risks associated historically been deemed to be high.
Understanding Brain Waves
The brains electrical activity can be analyzed in both the time domain and the frequency domain. The following are common patterns exhibited in the frequency domain:
- Alpha waves are related to relaxation and attention. They are present when you are awake with your eyes closed. They usually disappear when you open your eyes and pay attention to something.
- Beta waves are normal in people who are awake. It doesn’t matter whether your eyes are open or closed. Certain drugs, such as sedatives, can influence these waves.
- Theta waves are related to sleep. These slow waves are normal for all ages during sleep. They generally aren’t obvious when adults are awake.
- Delta waves are also related to sleep. These waves are normal in adults who are in deep sleep and in young children.
Frequency — and Time Domain
As mentioned in the description of the different brain waves above, the frequency perspective is applied to analyze the mental state of the patient (focused, sleeping, relaxed, etc.) by observing the activity-level. One application example is to detect tremor among Parkinson patients and actively try to interfere with this specific brain activity pattern to stop the tremor. A BCI limiting the effects of Parkinson’s requires implantation of electrode arrays directly to the brain. Due to the risk involved, the number of patients with these devices is only in the tens of thousands according to The Verge.
Another approach used for BCIs is the time-domain, in which brain activity is analyzed based on a specific response at a certain point in time. For example, after a patient is exposed to a certain sensation the measured brain activity is stored. This type of study is for example applied in marketing research to determine your reaction to a certain advertisement.
Another example of a BCI solution using the time-domain is the P300 Speller. In short, the goal of the P300 Speller is to enable individuals with severe neurological conditions to be able to communicate again by mapping brain-activity to specific letters. It works by showing patients different letters while recording brain activity with an EEG. By training a model based on the input and output, the P300 Speller will subsequently be able to “guess” which letter you’re thinking about.
Another interesting application of invasive BCIs is the use of prosthetic body parts that are directly connected with the nervous system. Integrations include controllable limbs such as hand and legs, but also extend to devices that augment one’s capability to see or hear again.
Lately, researchers have experimented with using non-invasive EEG to give patients control of objects such as wheelchairs to allow free movement. This particular research uses a combination of an EEG and classical forward neural network to predict the correct direction.
In achieving these solutions, one of the primary challenges is that our brains do not have the same shape and our neurons are oriented differently. Therefore, it’s been challenging to train generically applicable models.
Silicon Valley Hype About BCI
Recently, the field of BCI has gotten a lot of attention since Elon Mush (and other famous Silicon Valley entrepreneurs) have announced investments into ventures aiming to merge the human brain with the digital world. The main idea would be to extend the uses-cases of BCI outside of just the medical world and into everyone’s life.
It’s no wonder that entrepreneurs find it an interesting field as the potential is seemingly unlimited. No matter if you’re on a train in Asia, a plane in Europe or find yourself in the bushes of Africa, you will find people “engulfed” by pocket-sized screens. Smartphone has become our life. The promise of Elon’s future BCI’s is a direct integration of the digital world with our biology to remove the friction of needing a physical interface to access the bites and bytes of the world wide web. In simple terms, we will merge with our smartphone.
To many, this would sound incredibly creepy, but we have to remember that not so long ago, the majority of people would disregard the notion of online dating. This stigma was expressed in a Wired article from 2002, in which the author wrote: “Twenty years from now, the idea that someone looking for love won’t look for it online will be silly, akin to skipping the card catalog to instead wander the stacks because ‘the right books are found only by accident.” In some ways, this prediction of the future has come faster than we expected.
However, mainstream adoption of BCI does not just require a cultural shift, it also requires fundamental breakthroughs in deep science, as we still have a long way to go before we know how to decode, measure and stimulate the brain with a specific goal. This includes improvements in not only hardware and computing power but also in our basic understanding of how our brain works.
That said the potential for future BCIs seem almost limitless if we become capable of re-wiring our neurological system (health, lifestyle, longevity, etc.). So let’s take a look at some current fascinating research and applications, which might move us closer to this future.
Memory Enhancing BCIs
Scientists are also working on how to use BCI to limit memory loss due to Alzheimer’s — a mental illness impacting 1 in 3 elderly before death.
In 2011, Professor Berger from USC completed long term memory experiments on rats (the hippocampal region of the brain) to see if it would be possible to transfer memories via a chip.
In experiments drawing inspiration from “Pavlovian Conditioning”, brain waves of rats were monitored a cue told them they would get drinking water. By recording the changes of the hippocampal into a chip and re-inserting the chip into the brain of another mouse, Berger showed that is possible to transfer memories artificially. Since completing the first successful experiments on rats, Berger has also proved that the same results can be replicated for monkeys. However, no human experiments have been made so far. Berger’s research could help us understand how memory works, which might lead to a solution to Alzheimer’s.
That said, the future of Alzheimer’s treatment is still unsure. Bill Gates recently donated 50 million dollars to help with different side effects of Alzheimer’s, as he believes that the actual treatment might still be more than 10 years into the future.
Understanding Sleep
By using EEGs, we know that the brain is more active during sleep than when we’re awake. However, why we sleep and what happens during sleep is generally not well understood.
To discover if we’re visualizing things during sleep, researchers conducted an experiment similar to the P300 Speller, but instead measured brain activity for image mapping during sleep.
The study showed that brain activity patterns could be mapped to specific image objects during sleep — hence the conclusion that our brain indeed is visualizing things during our sleep. That said, we’re still far away from being able to predict your exact dreams in real-time.
Researchers today broadly agree that sleep is a critical part of a healthy life: Good rest improves memory, concentration, and learning. With that in mind, sleep will be an interesting topic in the future of BCIs.
BCI for Workplaces
We’re starting to see some early experiments of using BCIs outside of the medical field. I had the chance to meet one of the co-founders of PlatoScience, a company making a neuro-stimulator to help people work more creatively or focused, to learn more about their vision of BCIs in a workspace.
PlatoScience claims that their device can stimulate the frequency of your brain in a way that improves your capacity within creative and focused work. To do so they use a TES (Transcranial Electrical Stimulation), which is a scientific method for painless brain stimulation that uses a microdose of electrical current to stimulate specific parts of the brain, and thereby enhance already naturally occurring activity.
Whether someone is working “more focused” or “more creatively” is difficult to objectively measure. Especially, as many other variables such as sleep, relationships, etc. also might play a part during the test. That said, PlatoScience says that they are building on well-established research, that just hasn’t been brought to market yet. Quoting PlatoScience from their website:
“There is no doubt that TES can modulate neural activity and thereby influence the brain activity of subjects. The basic fundament of the method stems from the 60’s and 70’s, but over the last 10–15 years the amount of scientific research into TES has expanded.”
As of now, the company has several beta-testers in Copenhagen. However, the device will be made available to the market in December 2017 for 299 USD.
Final Thoughts
Although research began in the 1970s, we’re only at the very beginning stages of BCIs. Given the difficulty with understanding brain signals, the vast amount of noise in our measurements, and that every brain is shaped differently, it remains to be seen how it’s possible to generalize models. That said, I think everyone would agree that the future possibilities of BCIs are both remarkable and a tad scary.
As a final note, I want to thank Ambrose Soehn for helping me understand the topic better and share some of the most exciting research with me.
