A week away

So, I underestimated the amount of work leading up to my prelim defense, and going to start my little break now-ish. It isn't the prelim work as much as the other stuff, like my little Thunderbird on a USB stick took forever to configure perfectly, and was then corrupted by an old version of TrueCrypt hiding on one of my computers. *poof* All that work disappeared. Ugh. Not sure how to handle that now, but might have to think up a little hack to make it work properly.

In the meantime, here are a few stories...

Serious:
60 Minutes covered DEKA on Sunday. Thank you to the 20-ish people that let me know about it, including my parents. They're silly. They still live in a world where missing a TV show means you have to wait for the rerun. Video clip is up on the 60 Minutes site.

This best computer interfaces story is a trip down memory lane.

Pravda has a very vague and almost not worth reading article on a Russian BCI group.

The Boston Globe discusses some of the hurdles of setting up an implantable BCI project, and chronicles the situation over at the now defunct Cyberkinetics. I don't want to say anything about the project that could anger one of the 14,000 government institutions regulating aspects of it (kidding on the number btw), so I will point to here (yes, the page is in a very very early alpha state).

And some sort of licensing setup for ECoG algorithms has been setup with a company called Neurolutions. (Really? Neurolutions? Have we gotten to the point where all the good brain related names are taken? Even DNI, which was a 3am, caffeine-induced hyper-mania induced naming beats the snot out of that.)

Seriously?:
I could bring myself to watch this clip, but here's the title:
"Robotic baby seal has healing powers" - CNN (also known as, "We fired out entire science department, but what could go wrong?" News)
Video clip. Be sure to get the tshirt, too.

Hochberg article in NEJoM

Leigh has an article in this month's New England Journal of Medicine related to The Project. Required reading, of course.

Adaptive BCI interface

There's a story making the rounds about University of Florida researcher creating an adaptive BCI that is getting misinterpreted on every site I've seen it on, including a few science-ish sites/blogs. There are just some real schlock sites out there.

Here's the real scoop. Adaptive BCIs are not new, but the implementation of this one is interesting for a number of reasons, the most notable of which is that it uses agents to evaluate the reward and output, updating each as performance improves. This requires some knowledge of the reward condition, which is a whole ball of wax we won't go into detail about because it means that reward conditions are defined and recognized prior to any attempt to learn. Though reinforcement learning does not require prior knowledge of the reward (you do something, and if you get a reward, that was what you want to do), the practical application of the system require a significant amount of knowledge about the environment.

This would be very useful for tasks such as computer control, where the environment has a limited number of components and those components can be explicitly defined and communicated. I think it is obvious by now that the first generation of truly useful BCIs will require a number of techniques working synergistically to operate in an open environment, and this 'dueling banjos' agent could very likely be one of them.

What this is NOT doing, and anyone that even glanced at the abstract should be able to tell, is alter the implant itself. It does not adjust the electrodes physically, filter the signal differently, stimulate the same or other electrodes. They are talking about a relatively standard AI learning algorithm in an interesting configuration put into action.

Don't get me wrong, it is a very interesting experiment and worth thinking about, but come on folks. At least read the abstract.

The paper.

I would link to the source sites, but they were all rubbish reporting.

Update: Okay, Medgadget did a good job, though they just posted two sentences and linked to the press release.

Being heard

Phil Kennedy's work is in the news again. He's been working on using his Neurotrophic Electrode to decode phonemes from Broca's area of a locked-in patient. He did have a number of posters at SfN (right next to mine, too), and the work seems to be moving along steadily. Having talked with him, I know his philosophy is to write papers only when there is a major, major finding, but I would like to see a few technique or preliminary result papers in a peer reviewed journal, like J Neural Engineering. Still, I'll always cheer on the guy that just forges ahead, blazing a path for others.

Unfortunately, the article is at New Scientist, which requires a subscription, which I don't have, but there is a BBC report as well.

The Neurotrophic Electrode is something Phil developed and has been used in several locked-in patients. When I worked with him, we were focused on ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and spinal cord injury (SCI), and implanting MI. The electrode is essentially a glass cone with a bit of sciatic nerve and neurotrophic factor that is just pushed into the cortex. The damage causes neurons to sprout new processes, which are attracted to the trophic factor and grow through the cone. There is no information on the types of cells attracted to the trophic factor, and while units are seen after a couple dozen weeks, the identity of the cells is unknown. While the cone tip is lined up to grab pyramidal cells, the patients need a 'warm up' period in order to activate the cells, which is somewhat suspicious. Other studies using traditional electrodes show instantaneous control, and the fact that a warm up period is necessary could mean that what is actually being grabbed are ascending cholinergic fibers from the RAS or possibly local interneurons active during learning. Either way, information about the associated function is still present, but some basic histology showing more than myelinated fibers in the cone are really needed. Just a few thoughts that I've had since leaving...

RFID TBA DOA?

(That would be Radio Frequency ID To Be Announced Dead On Arrival for those of you acronymically challenged.)

The past week there has been a spat over the safety of RFID chip implants related to cancer. The debate typifies the current scientific and political climate, and I just thought I would give VeriChip the opportunity to respond before posting more.

It began last week with several reports that VeriChip's RFID implants have been linked to increased cases of cancer in rats. These implants are currently being tested in people with Alzheimer's as a way of digitally tagging them with vital information relevant to their treatment. As any former retirement home worker (like my sister, now a lawyer) would tell you, Alzheimer's patients tend to go a little bonkers at times and try to escape or run around naked (without their medical tag wristbands).

The interesting part, pointed out by Ammar, a member of the lab, and noted in a Wired report, is the link to Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson. Ammar wrote:

Implanted RFID chips made the news again this morning. The associated press is reporting links with cancer (old news). This hits the news as Tommy Thompson announced that he is running for president. Thompson had approved the device when he was secretary of health and human services. Tommy Thompson joined the board of VeriChip five month after he left DHHS.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070909/ap_on_re_us/chipping_america_ii

Anyway the article has very good bibliography about implanted RFID and might be interesting to read for the development of future wireless brain implants.

Techdirt has an interesting write up on the ins and outs of the turbulent approval process, and is definitely worth a read.

The latest response from VeriChip is chilling. As a former pharma drone, simply restating that you passed FDA requirements is the equivalent of saying, "Crap. We're screwed. Let's give the lawyers more time to build a case, and us more time to sell off stock before the 'Big One' hits." If you get approval from an organization, and said organization is suspected of being corrupted (especially when it comes to YOUR COMPANY in particular), then restating that that corrupt organization approved you means NOTHING.

via many sources including the above, plus Gizmodo, Slashdot, and MedGadget.

Human no. 43234522 reporting

Good news for all you cats hoping to get some type of technological implant. VeriChip's VeriMed trials have begun, with 200 Alzheimer's patients having implanted with RFID chips.
And you thought every person on the planet would be barcoded. Silly luddite. (By the age of 80, you have a better than 50% chance of having Alzheimer's.)

vis Engadget

Presto-whammo, excite-thalamo!

I would be remiss to skip a big story that has hit nearly every major media outlet. A 38-year old man in a minimally conscious state was aroused from his 'slumber' via stimulation of the "central thalamus". I'll leave you to read any one of the below reports, but I want to highlight the issues brought up by Wired. In short, they question the rise of what might be called the cognitive life support system, and when it would be ethical to "pull the plug".

Nature news
Nature news and views

N. D. Schiff, J. T. Giacino, K. Kalmar, J. D. Victor, K. Baker, M. Gerber, B. Fritz, B. Eisenberg, J. O’Connor, E. J. Kobylarz, S. Farris, A. Machado, C. McCagg, F. Plum1, J. J. Fins & A. R. Rezai.
Behavioural improvements with thalamic stimulation after severe traumatic brain injury.
Nature 448, 600-603 (2 August 2007)

Reports:
Retrospectacle
Neurodudes
Yahoo!

University of Florida project

A post hit Slashdot on the University of Florida Neuroprosthetics Research Group, headed by Justin Sanchez, and their efforts to develop a neuroprosthetic 'chip'. The article is horribly vague, but discusses stimulation as well as recording, and using intracortical signals. However, the emphasis on the EEG performance in the past makes me think this is something like a subdural grid. But, then it goes on to say that the signals will be recorded from a wire the width of a human hair. Wow, I hate science journalism. I cringe at lines like, "The initial goal? To correct conditions such as paralysis and epilepsy." That all?!?!? Pffft. Slackers.

From what I can gather, they are working on an intracortical electrode plus on board DSP which will detect early seizure activity and send a patterned pulse to disrupt an identified pre-seizure pattern. It will probably be entirely self contained and use some type of power supply similar to the Medtronics electrodes, or a long lasting on board battery in the control unit, which will probably be secured to the skull (no craniotomy to replace battery, have to crack the skull anyways to get the device in place, well established technique, etc.). But this is all just a guess. I know I've heard of Sanchez's work, I just can't place it...

As always, I like posts on sites like Slashdot because the article may actually be pretty crappy (like this one), but the user feedback is interesting, and sometimes funny. You have to be curious about what people outside the actual field think of the technology, besides that it's 'cool'. There's even a post from the perspective of a guy whose father-in-law has a DBS system.

Intersections, compilations, trepanations

I thought some might find this useful. Data? Data? We don't need no stinking data!!!! Oh wait. Yes, yes we need data... [taken from Mind Hacks]

Of particular interest is this nice list of available software. What a gold mine!

And Jebus, Medgadget has so many nice posts, maybe I should just auto-mirror their site! Just kidding, but be sure to check out this article on PEDOT, which offers the possibility of highly molded interfacing surfaces for future implants. Keep your eyes on this technology - I would give it an 80% chance that it will work its way into devices within 12 years. (Please note that if you make money on this suggestion, you owe me half, and if you lose money, hey, that's too bad for you!) Conductive polymers rock! Oh lawd, did I really just say that?

And lastly, for a little Friday fun, the Neurophilosopher has an article that is getting lots of attention, and dang nabbit if it isn't really interesting. Remember hearing from random people how The Ancient People of (insert some random place here) performed brain surgery 20 million years ago? Well, he's got the history of trepanation, complete with some wicked pictures, all laid out for you. I promise you will cringe at least one during the read.

Do you feeeel the POWAH?

Researchers at MIT do. Many sites are reporting on a recent MIT press release on work involving wireless power via magnetically coupled resonators. WiTricity - that's kinda snappy - works, as of now, at up to 2 meters (for those of us the US, that's about 400 miles ;) ) and works on the principle of resonant frequency. The transmitter is coupled with a receiver with the same resonant frequency as that give off, some type of voodoo happens, and that translates into power on the receiver end. Read the article for more specifics, but it is worth noting that this method interacts with all material between the transmitter and receiver, but only weakly on matter with a different resonance frequency.

I bring this up because providing power to implanted BCI systems is a major task that really has yet to share in the advances made in other areas of technological development. Right now there are three methods: External power (e.g.-BrainGate), induction (e.g.-Neurotrophic Electrode), and battery recharged via induction or replacement (e.g.-Medtronics). So what does the future hold? Well, the current generation of power systems will be able to piggy back on the advances in battery technology for some time, but will in part depend on better biocompatibility of coating materials. More power = more heat = greater dispersion of said heat. The easiest way to do that is modularize systems and let the body's natural cooling mechanisms deal with dissipation. That being said, something like WiTricity would be one technique.

Another would be harnessing the heat produced by the body to power small scale implantable generators. It might sound far fetched, but at least one lab I interviewed with while scoping out grad schools is working on it. Another option to assist with any power scheme is to take a page from hybrid cars and use the resulting movements to partially power the device. It takes lots of power to lift an arm, so why not harness gravity while it is lowered?

Sixth Sense Gone

A while back, Wired reported on a few people that were getting magnets implanted under their fingertips. Apparently these people could sense live wires, ringing cells phones, and other electrical phenomenon due to transient magnetic fields emitted from the active devices. Well, it looks like implanting random items in your body without medical knowledge isn't a good idea. This lady had one which fractured and fragmented, causing infection. Nothing a little coating of selastic wouldn't help prevent - I was astonished that they didn't coat them with some material acceptable for implant to begin with - but it looks like the experiment is over for this person. Here's a link to her LiveJournal entry.