Redefining the Medical Field
Imagine living in a world where brain tumors, sleep disorders, addictions, car accidents, disabilities, and psychological disorders could be prevented or detected and diagnosed with restorative purposes. Well, the technology that currently is being developed has put humans on a path that will well surpass the use cases mentioned before. A piece of technology that is leading this new wave of advancements and innovations are Brain-Machine Interfaces or BMIs for short.
BMIs are, as the name suggests, comprised of the brain and a machine, which can be anything from a microchip to a bionic arm. They measure brain activity and extract features from different activities and also convert those features into outputs that enhance or supplement human functions.
Brain-Machine Interfaces work by acquiring signals from the brain, analyzing them, and then translating them into commands that are sent to an output device that carries out the action. This system can be broken down into four sequential components: signal acquisition, feature extraction, feature translation, and device output. The most common signals used in data-acquisition are from electrodes on the scalp, on the cortical surface, or in the cortex.
The four components of a BMI system are controlled by an operating entity that defines aspects such as the timing of the operation, the details of the signal processing, and the oversight of the overall performance.
Since BMIs do not use the brain’s normal output pathways of peripheral nerves and muscles, they instead turn to utilize signals produced by the central nervous system. Because of the dependence on the nervous system, the user, and the BMI, with training from both sides, essentially work together to accomplish a whole new multitude of tasks.
Clinical uses of BMIs are more or less described in two classes — direct control of assistive technologies and neurorehabilitation. These applications of BCIs to assistive technology integrate the areas of communication, movement control, environmental control, and locomotion. However, these BCI applications are those that activate and control already existing neuromuscular pathways.
However, neurorehabilitation, which essentially serves as a therapeutic tool for people with impaired neuromuscular function, is still in a very experimental and early-staged position. Regardless, neurorehabilitatory features in Brain-Machine Interfaces have the potential to help impaired people relearn useful motor function and recover more efficiently.
Even with so much potential, Brain-Machine Interfaces still have quite a bit of limitation. This includes the long-term safety and sustainability of the recording electrodes and receptors used in BMI systems as well as the stability of recordable neural signals. However, many of these problems will be mitigated when a process to fully implant a telemetric device becomes available.
Until then, there is still much research and development to be done. Neuroengineering may be a promising field, but it’s undoubtedly a difficult one to break into without running into major setbacks and obstacles.
Ceural, a Bay Area startup, is focusing on a multidisciplinary research effort to design a Brain-Machine Interface that is both sustainable, user-friendly, and effective. It plans to first implement a hospital-centered application before a commercial product that is geared to the larger population.
Learn more at www.ceural.ml.
References/Sources:
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