17 ms·

Immediate brain plasticity after one hour of brain–computer interface

265 points by rajnathani 7y ago

rajnathani 7y ago
An article explaining parts of their result: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-11-movements-brains.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-11-movements-brains.html The implication for the use of this technology in the treatment of stroke and rehabilitation: > "The spatial specificity of the impacts achieved with BCI could be used to target those areas of the brain affected by strokes," explains Professor Arno Villringer, director of the neurology department at the MPI for Human Cognition and Brain Sciences. "Machine learning processes serve to decode or translate BCI activities into control signals," adds Professor Klaus-Robert Müller, professor of machine learning. "This is the only way to convert individual BCI activities into control signals without lengthy training periods. This customized reading of the BCI will be decisive in determining whether the technology can be used in rehabilitation systems in the future."
z3t4 7y ago
Our bodies are such a marvelous machine, with many individual parts and signaling processes, with the ability to rebuild and adapt.
- nobodyshere 7y ago
  Had that not been the case, we'd be a dead branch of evolution probably long gone by now.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Something that has always blown my mind is that you can have a hemisphere of your brain removed with no major consequences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy > Studies have found no significant long-term effects on memory, personality, or humor, and minimal changes in cognitive function overall.
petargyurov 7y ago
Really cool stuff. I'm picturing a future where humans achieve so much more due to a never depleting neuro-plasticity.
- nabla9 7y ago
  Possibilities are endless. Imagine when over-controlling parents, communities or governments figure how to use state of the art BCI feedback. Youth re-education camps around the world will make good students, athletes, citizens, "tame child-creatures", soldiers, jihadists, missionaries, Christians, communists and worker-consumers and assembly line workers around the clock. "We can build you. Lead the way to mental health–be the first in your family to enter a mental health clinic!"
  - gzimhelshani 7y ago
    fuck me
some1else 7y ago
I also had immediate brain plasticity after being involved in a traumatic experience.
abricot 7y ago
So.. is "plasticity" a good or bad thing?
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  It is both, it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, your brain can adapt very quickly to new stimuli and adopt good or bad habits such as problem solving or addiction. But, this quick adaptation also means you can 'unlearn' these things very easily too. That's my pop-sci understanding of plasticity, i picked it up when trying to get rid of my bad habits.
  - drawkbox 7y ago
    I also wonder if that is the reason so many things online when learning new information are addicting. The brain probably loves the plasticity state and thrives for it. Almost like a dopamine hit. So we go to distractions like reddit and HN or others too often. In the span of a few moments you can learn so much and refine what you know with research if good discussions are going on. It is important to make it useful info though or market/social patterns, not just something that is as easy to forget as it is to learn it.
    - etbebl 7y ago
      "Plasticity" basically means "learning" at a low level, so it's not really an explanation for why learning can be addicting.
      - drawkbox 7y ago
        Yeah but learning or completing tasks give a bit of dopamine so maybe learning in short bursts becomes addicting through successive iterations. When you work, you have large tasks, you break them up into smaller tasks, you learn along the way, and you get fueled by dopamine to continue. You learn and use your knowledge to work through tasks that are standard and dynamic in terms of change. Easier to do large projects/tasks by breaking it in small tasks rather than one big task. Lots of 'getting things done' or todo management plans gamify the dopmamine hits into small tasks. Each task can remove or add more work depending on how you complete them or how much you think about them to optimize or reduce work. There is weight to each decision but also forward movement and tasks being completed which gives dopamine. With online communities you are both learning and teaching on each iteration (comment/post) which when you post is a task being completed. The process is pretty standard and easy to repeat and focus on your points. The learning part is new information you get, the teaching part is formulating your response and refinement. Repeated actions like this refine and polish your ideas and understanding of the world. All of that is probably a dopamine hit combined with a bit of social aspect that may increase it. The impact of that task is low so it is easy to attack repeatedly, much like an addictive game cycle. There is little weight to each decision but also forward movement and the appearance/feeling of tasks being completed which gives dopamine. When you are sitting in front of your big project with all the tasks and smaller tasks that have real impact, next to the addicting short burst communities with all sorts of new and old ideas and discussions from learning about space or politics to jokes and memes with low impact, the online communities/information/learning can outweigh your work/project as the former seems to become a bigger draw if you aren't careful. It is almost easier to feel like you have been doing things posting on reddit/HN until you break out of a focus state and realize that is taking from your work time, but easy to slip into due to the amazing breadth of information and topics, where work is just focused usually. Both situations your brain is probably in plasticity states and getting dopamine from the learning and teaching short tasks. It is probably best to have multiple projects you are working on one serious and one with more open creative mode so that procrastination is at least on work during worktime and addiction to distractions is limited. Creating addicting game cycles to give dopamine hits and repeated addictive cycles is very evident also in social media or online discussion, like the little reddit notification. You can easily go spend 15 minute breaks from work and end up hours into a reddit/HN/social discussion. The plasticity of the brain in internet discussions also has our mind in a receptive state, so that is why online misinformation/disinformation is probably so able to propagate as well. The brain is open to new information and marketers/propagandists probably love that state to manipulate.
iamgopal 7y ago
All Excel files directly connected to Brains, we change one line in our thoughts, and we get output to someone's brain directly.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  Next step is to serve ads directly into people's brains. Suddenly I dread the future.
  - johnlbevan2 7y ago
    The future's bright... the future's Orange.
  - b3lvedere 7y ago
    They tried that with blipverts. Not a good idea.
    - REDDitMen 7y ago
      TikTok
  - segfaultbuserr 7y ago
    And add a little Google gadget that can search whatever currently in your mind in real-time, can't be too convenient, right?
    - bonestamp2 7y ago
      To avoid the thought police, we'd need something like tor but for brain searches. Maybe a paid service where prisoners with life sentences could proxy our thoughts through their brains and the money could benefit their families. This is starting to sound like a really bad sci-fi thriller.
jorshman 7y ago
This feels like evidence pointing to the future Dr. Miguel Nicolelis describes in Beyond Boundaries (how quickly human brains can interpret new inputs) - http://www.beyondboundariesnicolelis.net/wordpress/beyond-boundaries/ http://www.beyondboundariesnicolelis.net/wordpress/beyond-bo...
deskamess 7y ago
How is the feedback generated and fed into the brain? Lets say the goal was to move an object to the left? How does that cycle work?
z9e 7y ago
If anyone wants a great primer about neuroplasticity I recommend reading “The brain that changes itself” by Dr Norman Doidge
- maroonblazer 7y ago
  In searching for the book I came across this hour-long documentary by the same name that features the author. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFCOm1P_cQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFCOm1P_cQQ
  - mikejarema 7y ago
    I'm interested in watching this, but the video seems to have been taken down: "Video unavailable This video contains content from Octapixx, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." Is this the same documentary? https://www.dynamicbrain.ca/the-nature-of-things.html https://www.dynamicbrain.ca/the-nature-of-things.html
    - maroonblazer 7y ago
      It looks like it. Funnily those links are blocked for me (I'm in the U.S.) whereas the YT link is not.
      - mikejarema 7y ago
        Thanks. I'm Canada-based so it seems the issue is related to geo-restrictions. Hopefully between the two links, everyone who wants to check this doc out is covered.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
Interesting article, and the results at least “make sense” to me. I am just a single data point but there are a few things that I think help my neural plasticity: Mix up the way I do routine physical activities: for example switch the order of putting on shoes, etc. I spend anywhere from five minutes to twenty minutes in VR every day. Just putting on my Oculus Quest, and trying some random or favorite activity for a few minutes feels stimulating (and is fun). Meditation: I tend to meditate a fair amount for several days, then not meditate for a while, in a cycle. I feel better when I meditate more but I don’t have a good explanation beyond spirituality. EDIT: also, I think lots of quality sleep refresh my brain. In the 1980s, Sir Francis Crick theorized that REM sleep had the beneficial effect of removing unnecessary memories from the previous day - sort of a Marie Kondo spark joy cleaning out process.
aantix 7y ago
I would experiment with such devices but placement of the electrodes is hard to deduce. How do the studies ensure consistent placement across participants?
mamon 7y ago
Isn’t neuroplasticity the main method of operation for a brain? So you’ll always notice some plasticity in a person that is not, literally or metaphorically, brain-dead. What’s the news here?

265 points by rajnathani 7y ago

An article explaining parts of their result: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-11-movements-brains.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-11-movements-brains.html The implication for the use of this technology in the treatment of stroke and rehabilitation: > "The spatial specificity of the impacts achieved with BCI could be used to target those areas of the brain affected by strokes," explains Professor Arno Villringer, director of the neurology department at the MPI for Human Cognition and Brain Sciences. "Machine learning processes serve to decode or translate BCI activities into control signals," adds Professor Klaus-Robert Müller, professor of machine learning. "This is the only way to convert individual BCI activities into control signals without lengthy training periods. This customized reading of the BCI will be decisive in determining whether the technology can be used in rehabilitation systems in the future."

z3t4 7y ago

Our bodies are such a marvelous machine, with many individual parts and signaling processes, with the ability to rebuild and adapt.

nobodyshere 7y ago
Had that not been the case, we'd be a dead branch of evolution probably long gone by now.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
Something that has always blown my mind is that you can have a hemisphere of your brain removed with no major consequences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy > Studies have found no significant long-term effects on memory, personality, or humor, and minimal changes in cognitive function overall.

petargyurov 7y ago

Really cool stuff. I'm picturing a future where humans achieve so much more due to a never depleting neuro-plasticity.

nabla9 7y ago
Possibilities are endless. Imagine when over-controlling parents, communities or governments figure how to use state of the art BCI feedback. Youth re-education camps around the world will make good students, athletes, citizens, "tame child-creatures", soldiers, jihadists, missionaries, Christians, communists and worker-consumers and assembly line workers around the clock. "We can build you. Lead the way to mental health–be the first in your family to enter a mental health clinic!"
- gzimhelshani 7y ago
  fuck me

some1else 7y ago

I also had immediate brain plasticity after being involved in a traumatic experience.

abricot 7y ago

So.. is "plasticity" a good or bad thing?

WilliamEdward 7y ago
It is both, it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, your brain can adapt very quickly to new stimuli and adopt good or bad habits such as problem solving or addiction. But, this quick adaptation also means you can 'unlearn' these things very easily too. That's my pop-sci understanding of plasticity, i picked it up when trying to get rid of my bad habits.
- drawkbox 7y ago
  I also wonder if that is the reason so many things online when learning new information are addicting. The brain probably loves the plasticity state and thrives for it. Almost like a dopamine hit. So we go to distractions like reddit and HN or others too often. In the span of a few moments you can learn so much and refine what you know with research if good discussions are going on. It is important to make it useful info though or market/social patterns, not just something that is as easy to forget as it is to learn it.
  - etbebl 7y ago
    "Plasticity" basically means "learning" at a low level, so it's not really an explanation for why learning can be addicting.
    - drawkbox 7y ago
      Yeah but learning or completing tasks give a bit of dopamine so maybe learning in short bursts becomes addicting through successive iterations. When you work, you have large tasks, you break them up into smaller tasks, you learn along the way, and you get fueled by dopamine to continue. You learn and use your knowledge to work through tasks that are standard and dynamic in terms of change. Easier to do large projects/tasks by breaking it in small tasks rather than one big task. Lots of 'getting things done' or todo management plans gamify the dopmamine hits into small tasks. Each task can remove or add more work depending on how you complete them or how much you think about them to optimize or reduce work. There is weight to each decision but also forward movement and tasks being completed which gives dopamine. With online communities you are both learning and teaching on each iteration (comment/post) which when you post is a task being completed. The process is pretty standard and easy to repeat and focus on your points. The learning part is new information you get, the teaching part is formulating your response and refinement. Repeated actions like this refine and polish your ideas and understanding of the world. All of that is probably a dopamine hit combined with a bit of social aspect that may increase it. The impact of that task is low so it is easy to attack repeatedly, much like an addictive game cycle. There is little weight to each decision but also forward movement and the appearance/feeling of tasks being completed which gives dopamine. When you are sitting in front of your big project with all the tasks and smaller tasks that have real impact, next to the addicting short burst communities with all sorts of new and old ideas and discussions from learning about space or politics to jokes and memes with low impact, the online communities/information/learning can outweigh your work/project as the former seems to become a bigger draw if you aren't careful. It is almost easier to feel like you have been doing things posting on reddit/HN until you break out of a focus state and realize that is taking from your work time, but easy to slip into due to the amazing breadth of information and topics, where work is just focused usually. Both situations your brain is probably in plasticity states and getting dopamine from the learning and teaching short tasks. It is probably best to have multiple projects you are working on one serious and one with more open creative mode so that procrastination is at least on work during worktime and addiction to distractions is limited. Creating addicting game cycles to give dopamine hits and repeated addictive cycles is very evident also in social media or online discussion, like the little reddit notification. You can easily go spend 15 minute breaks from work and end up hours into a reddit/HN/social discussion. The plasticity of the brain in internet discussions also has our mind in a receptive state, so that is why online misinformation/disinformation is probably so able to propagate as well. The brain is open to new information and marketers/propagandists probably love that state to manipulate.

iamgopal 7y ago

All Excel files directly connected to Brains, we change one line in our thoughts, and we get output to someone's brain directly.

Mirioron 7y ago
Next step is to serve ads directly into people's brains. Suddenly I dread the future.
- johnlbevan2 7y ago
  The future's bright... the future's Orange.
- b3lvedere 7y ago
  They tried that with blipverts. Not a good idea.
  - REDDitMen 7y ago
    TikTok
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  And add a little Google gadget that can search whatever currently in your mind in real-time, can't be too convenient, right?
  - bonestamp2 7y ago
    To avoid the thought police, we'd need something like tor but for brain searches. Maybe a paid service where prisoners with life sentences could proxy our thoughts through their brains and the money could benefit their families. This is starting to sound like a really bad sci-fi thriller.

jorshman 7y ago

This feels like evidence pointing to the future Dr. Miguel Nicolelis describes in Beyond Boundaries (how quickly human brains can interpret new inputs) - http://www.beyondboundariesnicolelis.net/wordpress/beyond-boundaries/ http://www.beyondboundariesnicolelis.net/wordpress/beyond-bo...

deskamess 7y ago

How is the feedback generated and fed into the brain? Lets say the goal was to move an object to the left? How does that cycle work?

z9e 7y ago

If anyone wants a great primer about neuroplasticity I recommend reading “The brain that changes itself” by Dr Norman Doidge

maroonblazer 7y ago
In searching for the book I came across this hour-long documentary by the same name that features the author. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFCOm1P_cQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFCOm1P_cQQ
- mikejarema 7y ago
  I'm interested in watching this, but the video seems to have been taken down: "Video unavailable This video contains content from Octapixx, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." Is this the same documentary? https://www.dynamicbrain.ca/the-nature-of-things.html https://www.dynamicbrain.ca/the-nature-of-things.html
  - maroonblazer 7y ago
    It looks like it. Funnily those links are blocked for me (I'm in the U.S.) whereas the YT link is not.
    - mikejarema 7y ago
      Thanks. I'm Canada-based so it seems the issue is related to geo-restrictions. Hopefully between the two links, everyone who wants to check this doc out is covered.

mark_l_watson 7y ago

Interesting article, and the results at least “make sense” to me. I am just a single data point but there are a few things that I think help my neural plasticity: Mix up the way I do routine physical activities: for example switch the order of putting on shoes, etc. I spend anywhere from five minutes to twenty minutes in VR every day. Just putting on my Oculus Quest, and trying some random or favorite activity for a few minutes feels stimulating (and is fun). Meditation: I tend to meditate a fair amount for several days, then not meditate for a while, in a cycle. I feel better when I meditate more but I don’t have a good explanation beyond spirituality. EDIT: also, I think lots of quality sleep refresh my brain. In the 1980s, Sir Francis Crick theorized that REM sleep had the beneficial effect of removing unnecessary memories from the previous day - sort of a Marie Kondo spark joy cleaning out process.

aantix 7y ago

I would experiment with such devices but placement of the electrodes is hard to deduce. How do the studies ensure consistent placement across participants?

mamon 7y ago

Isn’t neuroplasticity the main method of operation for a brain? So you’ll always notice some plasticity in a person that is not, literally or metaphorically, brain-dead. What’s the news here?