• Question: can you improve you brain power or quality and give more controle over your mind with a machine? if so how?

    Asked by mrbrains to Ben, James, Jen, Michael, Susanna on 11 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Susanna Martin

      Susanna Martin answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      I’m not sure exactly what you mean, I think a lot of people like to improve their brain by doing brain training exercises! but I’m not sure how you could involve a machine in this. Sorry, this isn’t my area of expertise!

    • Photo: Jen Todd Jones

      Jen Todd Jones answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      Hi mrbrain – ha I just got that, Mr Brains!

      The only thing I can think of related to this is helping people with paralysis use their mind to control and computer and mobile devices around them. Using electroencephalography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography) a machine can learn that when a person (who is completely physically paralysed otherwise) thinks about, for example, looking up, it means they want their mobile scooter to move forward. Or when they think about moving their left hand it means they want to write the word “Yes” on a computer screen. By using EEG that works out where in the brain thoughts occur, we can use that to train a machine to associate that thought with a command or function on a computer. It’s pretty neat and helps people who would otherwise be trapped in bed being fed through a tube with no way to communicate with that outside world! This is called locked-in syndrome where a person is conscious and the brain is working but the rest of their body doesn’t work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome).

      There is also very modern science that implants tiny machines deep inside peoples brains to help them walk around, and even to make them feel better if they have depression – it’s called deep-brain stimulation. At the moment it is very rare to have this treatment because of the risks associated with brain surgery, but it’s increasing all the time and soon we might even have little wireless packs we carry with us that can zap our brain deep inside to make us happier, or perk up our attention!

    • Photo: James Stovold

      James Stovold answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      Hi mrbrains,

      As Jen says, there are a number of different technologies that could be used to pair machines and the mind. There are devices called brain-machine interfaces which can either use EEGs (electroencephalography) to read large parts of the brain or even using wires to connect a computer to your nervous system and allow your brain to control the computer and also to receive feedback from the computer into your nervous system. The main area where this is in use is an area called neuroprosthetics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroprosthetics) which is based around the idea of (for example) replacing lost limbs with a false limb and both allowing the brain to control the limb and also allowing the limb to send feelings of touch and sensing heat etc. back to the brain! I almost got involved with this area of research before I started my current PhD, I was going to look at how we could restore sight to blinded people by connecting their brains up to cameras that were mounted on glasses.

      Some of the more wacky researchers are looking at how we can use nanorobotics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanorobotics) to sit inside our bodies and perform certain tasks (such as helping with healing or releasing insulin at a specified rate to help combat diabetes).

      James

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