7 ms·

A soft, wearable brain–machine interface

146 points by sizzle 5y ago

seph-reed 5y ago
Do you ever feel the impulse to "ctrl-f" when you're at the grocery store? Imagine the feeling of going to reach for something, and accidentally just envisioning moving your arm. Might be like "stepping into air" when you're almost asleep.
- hemloc_io 5y ago
  I've had this happen when opening a cookbook. Spooky for sure. Time to go outside for a bit.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 58x14 5y ago
  When I used to regularly play a particular lane-based MOBA, any time I'd need to react quickly while driving, I'd instinctively feel the need to burst some variation of QWE depending on which character I'd recently been playing. Sometimes if I practice difficult scales (those with novel movements for weak fingers e.g. left pinky and ring) on the piano before typing on a keyboard, I'll mistype more frequently. I wonder if this type and similar phenomena is also related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_vibration_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_vibration_syndrome
yhvh 5y ago
https://www.cumulusneuro.com/ https://www.cumulusneuro.com/
- fouc 5y ago
  It's striking the site is focusing on the use of it in clinical trials only, and not for general purpose use yet unfortunately.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    Probably requires: - proven usefulness for general computer tasks - must be relatively easy and quick to set up - cost must be reasonable, if expensive - anything over something like $2,000 is going to severely limit your customer pool. A semi-automated manufacturing line will help with this - for good measure, a crack marketing team Another consideration is that the BCI industry is moving insanely fast. By the time you set up a production line and start mass-producing, there might be news about a novel much-better process that overshadows your product and destroys sales. This is effectively what happened with VR in 2012-2018 when everything was super expensive; only as of recent can you recommend an Index or Quest 2 to people without fearing a huge leap in VR quality to be coming in the near future.
    - nexuist 5y ago
      > anything over something like $2,000 is going to severely limit your customer pool. Eh, not necessarily, early BCIs if actually useful will likely be targeted towards people with disabilities and thus funded through private or socialized health insurance. Once the hardware undergoes commoditization consumer grade BCI will become inevitable with low price points. VR evolved slower because there was no middleman like insurance buying hardware for their customer pool (the counterpoint being Apple Watch which you have been able to get at a huge discount with some insurers).
0xFACEFEED 5y ago
Could someone explain to a dummy like me: what are the actual technological bottlenecks for brain-machine interfaces? Like... setting aside all the things that, given enough time/effort, we'll reach some useful maximum. I'm told that with ML (eg: image classification) we'll eventually train the systems enough that they'll do a pretty amazing job. So is it converting analog brain signals to digital? Is the rate of data transmission even relevant here? What would happen if we had enough "brain data" from a single person to saturate a 10 gigabit network? Do we have the software to do anything meaningful with that?
- judge2020 5y ago
  > What would happen if we had enough "brain data" from a single person to saturate a 10g network? Upgrade to USB 4 :)
  - 0xFACEFEED 5y ago
    Derp. Corrected to 10 gigabit.
    - mattkrause 5y ago
      This is not too far off what experimental systems already do. My lab has equipment that collects data from 288 electrodes in the brain, each at 16 bits/sample x 30,000 samples/sec. This works out to 140 mbps, not counting overhead or other types of data we collect, and it’s not abnormally large. If we had a research question that required it, the vendor sells versions with up to 512 channels—-and you can gang them together for even more. However, this probably isn’t the direction BCI is headed. A lot of the signal is redundant. Some of this is because nearby neurons tend to do very similar things, and some of it is because signals propagate pretty well through the brain so electrodes pick up the same signal in different places. As a result, most non-research applications don’t need all of that data and it’s increasingly possible to do some preprocessing right at the brain: folks at Imperial have made all kinds of cool ASICs that extract spikes.
- pama 5y ago
anfractuosity 5y ago
It looks like they're using one 10x10 array of electrodes? With say the traditional EEG electrodes, they seem to cover all over the head (some with say around 128 electrodes). I understand that they'd get a higher quality signal, but is the fact they're only using electrodes over one area of the scalp a disadvantage?
- pixelbro 5y ago
  You're looking at one electrode. There's ten of those things (though they want to add more). The point is to make good contact with the scalp through the hair without needing to shave and/or apply contact gel.
- photonic288 5y ago
  I don't think that's what's happening here. It appears there are electrodes at each extreme and intersection of each strap. The micro needles are likely part of a single electrode, with the purpose of avoiding hair, reducing electrical impedance by penetrating the outer layers of skin, and reducing motion artifact by anchoring to the skin.
Mizza 5y ago
Curious about these "micro-needle electrodes". If I try on my buddy's helmet, is there a chance I'm going to catch hepatitis?
- kortex 5y ago
  I would guess they are meant as consumables. The needles are 0.8 mm long and 0.35 mm wide, pyrimidal spikes. Definitely too shallow to cause bleeding but that's still quite intimate contact.
- stcredzero 5y ago
  I'm also concerned about how such devices will affect and be affected by cavitation. Cavitation inside the skull has been found to happen in concussion injuries in explosions. It's also thought that it can happen with the smaller impulses coming from punches and everyday impacts. Are the devices subject to cavitation, particularly the long, thin parts, and what happens to those long thin parts inside the brain when they are subjected to cavitation? EDIT: This device is only penetrating the scalp, but other devices like Neuralink penetrate into the brain.
  - kortex 5y ago
    It's barely even penetrating the scalp. The needles (really better described as spikes, they have a fair amount of draft, about 20°) only puncture the strateum corneum - outer layer of dead skin cells and lipids.
  - mattkrause 5y ago
    This particular device doesn’t even penetrate al the way through the scalp, so the skull would likely obliterate these long before they reach the brain. Motion is a problem for things that are inserted into the brain, but people have been getting DBS and sEEG implants for 30 years, and it’s manageable, though not totally solved.
58x14 5y ago
I have a Muse 2 [1] and a Flowtime [2]; both are consumer-oriented portable EEGs using Bluetooth to transmit data displayed on their respective mobile apps. The Muse hardware is seriously inhibited by the same user-exploitative trends we see everywhere, accompanied by meaningless promises. Many researchers used the Muse SDK and API until they discontinued it in 2019 [3] in favor of Muse Direct - another way to force users to feed Muse their data and lock them into a subscription. Unsurprisingly, this was also abandoned [4] and they claim "We're working on a solution that allows you to collect raw EEG data using the free to download" app, which would still allow Muse complete control over your authentication, use and data. Ugh. At least the community has reverse-engineered the LSL protocol and built a Python package [5]. Flowtime claimed that it offers a closed API, as they don't have the resources to maintain an open API [6]. I remember somewhere they claimed it was on their roadmap, but I searched again today and couldn't find any support of their claim. BrainBit [7] and NextMind [8] seem to provide more robust developer tools, although I have no experience. Naturally, each of these runs more than double the ~$200 cost of the Muse and Flowtime devices. I have no formal neurological education but I strongly believe non-invasive EEGs, combined with novel, gamified training techniques coupled with machine learning will usher in a new era of digital interactions. Like the transition from tactile smartphone keypads to the eventually-ubiquitous full touchscreen, I expect many design iterations in both hardware and software will produce utterly fascinating products. I can't wait to get excited again for a product launch. [1] https://choosemuse.com/muse-2/ https://choosemuse.com/muse-2/ [2] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flowtime-biosensing-meditation-headband#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flowtime-biosensing-medit... [3] https://github.com/sccn/labstreaminglayer/issues/30 https://github.com/sccn/labstreaminglayer/issues/30 [4] https://choosemuse.force.com/s/article/Muse-Direct-Subscription-Update?language=en_US https://choosemuse.force.com/s/article/Muse-Direct-Subscript... [5] https://github.com/alexandrebarachant/muse-lsl https://github.com/alexandrebarachant/muse-lsl [6] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/987756376/flowtime-biosensing-meditation-headband/comments https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/987756376/flowtime-bios... [7] https://sdk.brainbit.com/ https://sdk.brainbit.com/ [8] https://www.next-mind.com/developer/ https://www.next-mind.com/developer/
- refulgentis 5y ago
  I've been kicking around getting one of these for years, the deciding factor for me is essentially "what kind of demos can you pull off with these?" ex. a simple "yes / no" detector would be meh, pointer control would be amazing, some sort of mood detector/brain trainer type apps would be _awesome_ since it'd be producing value for me
zzzzzzzza 5y ago
i just want as much bandwidth and accuracy through a bci as i can get with a keyboard
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
perl4ever 5y ago
(I think this is something different, but possibly of interest to people whose imagination is captured by electronic interfaces with the nervous system) "A research team led by a 2018 BBRF Young Investigator, Sung Il Park, Ph.D., reports that it has developed and tested a new technology enabling unprecedented exploration of nerve-cell function inside organs of the body outside of the brain. The new technology, called optoelectronics, uses tiny wireless implantable devices to manipulate the activity of individual nerve cells in the organs of awake, freely moving animals. This makes possible experiments with the power to reveal the specific (and often multiple) functions of different kinds of nerve cells in the body's periphery." https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/new-technology-enables-manipulation-neurons-peripheral-organs-and-reveals-mechanism-appetite https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/new-technology-enables...
RandomWorker 5y ago
Idk if I was a kid I would be playing around with this tech. Sadly, as an adult I am just scared of this tech. So funny how 20 years changes your brain and perception of tech. 100% a younger me would be in my ceiling room soldering stuff like this together and hooking it up to pc somehow.
- nexuist 5y ago
  Focus more on what you want to see: there are great uses for this tech that would make life better. You can be apart of building it or you can support the people and organizations that are in this for the right reasons.
jelling 5y ago
All I want is to never have to look for the right window again while switching apps. Such a tiny but constant tax on focus.

146 points by sizzle 5y ago

Do you ever feel the impulse to "ctrl-f" when you're at the grocery store? Imagine the feeling of going to reach for something, and accidentally just envisioning moving your arm. Might be like "stepping into air" when you're almost asleep.

hemloc_io 5y ago
I've had this happen when opening a cookbook. Spooky for sure. Time to go outside for a bit.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
58x14 5y ago
When I used to regularly play a particular lane-based MOBA, any time I'd need to react quickly while driving, I'd instinctively feel the need to burst some variation of QWE depending on which character I'd recently been playing. Sometimes if I practice difficult scales (those with novel movements for weak fingers e.g. left pinky and ring) on the piano before typing on a keyboard, I'll mistype more frequently. I wonder if this type and similar phenomena is also related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_vibration_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_vibration_syndrome

yhvh 5y ago

https://www.cumulusneuro.com/ https://www.cumulusneuro.com/

fouc 5y ago
It's striking the site is focusing on the use of it in clinical trials only, and not for general purpose use yet unfortunately.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Probably requires: - proven usefulness for general computer tasks - must be relatively easy and quick to set up - cost must be reasonable, if expensive - anything over something like $2,000 is going to severely limit your customer pool. A semi-automated manufacturing line will help with this - for good measure, a crack marketing team Another consideration is that the BCI industry is moving insanely fast. By the time you set up a production line and start mass-producing, there might be news about a novel much-better process that overshadows your product and destroys sales. This is effectively what happened with VR in 2012-2018 when everything was super expensive; only as of recent can you recommend an Index or Quest 2 to people without fearing a huge leap in VR quality to be coming in the near future.
  - nexuist 5y ago
    > anything over something like $2,000 is going to severely limit your customer pool. Eh, not necessarily, early BCIs if actually useful will likely be targeted towards people with disabilities and thus funded through private or socialized health insurance. Once the hardware undergoes commoditization consumer grade BCI will become inevitable with low price points. VR evolved slower because there was no middleman like insurance buying hardware for their customer pool (the counterpoint being Apple Watch which you have been able to get at a huge discount with some insurers).

0xFACEFEED 5y ago

Could someone explain to a dummy like me: what are the actual technological bottlenecks for brain-machine interfaces? Like... setting aside all the things that, given enough time/effort, we'll reach some useful maximum. I'm told that with ML (eg: image classification) we'll eventually train the systems enough that they'll do a pretty amazing job. So is it converting analog brain signals to digital? Is the rate of data transmission even relevant here? What would happen if we had enough "brain data" from a single person to saturate a 10 gigabit network? Do we have the software to do anything meaningful with that?

judge2020 5y ago
> What would happen if we had enough "brain data" from a single person to saturate a 10g network? Upgrade to USB 4 :)
- 0xFACEFEED 5y ago
  Derp. Corrected to 10 gigabit.
  - mattkrause 5y ago
    This is not too far off what experimental systems already do. My lab has equipment that collects data from 288 electrodes in the brain, each at 16 bits/sample x 30,000 samples/sec. This works out to 140 mbps, not counting overhead or other types of data we collect, and it’s not abnormally large. If we had a research question that required it, the vendor sells versions with up to 512 channels—-and you can gang them together for even more. However, this probably isn’t the direction BCI is headed. A lot of the signal is redundant. Some of this is because nearby neurons tend to do very similar things, and some of it is because signals propagate pretty well through the brain so electrodes pick up the same signal in different places. As a result, most non-research applications don’t need all of that data and it’s increasingly possible to do some preprocessing right at the brain: folks at Imperial have made all kinds of cool ASICs that extract spikes.
pama 5y ago

anfractuosity 5y ago

It looks like they're using one 10x10 array of electrodes? With say the traditional EEG electrodes, they seem to cover all over the head (some with say around 128 electrodes). I understand that they'd get a higher quality signal, but is the fact they're only using electrodes over one area of the scalp a disadvantage?

pixelbro 5y ago
You're looking at one electrode. There's ten of those things (though they want to add more). The point is to make good contact with the scalp through the hair without needing to shave and/or apply contact gel.
photonic288 5y ago
I don't think that's what's happening here. It appears there are electrodes at each extreme and intersection of each strap. The micro needles are likely part of a single electrode, with the purpose of avoiding hair, reducing electrical impedance by penetrating the outer layers of skin, and reducing motion artifact by anchoring to the skin.

Mizza 5y ago

Curious about these "micro-needle electrodes". If I try on my buddy's helmet, is there a chance I'm going to catch hepatitis?

kortex 5y ago
I would guess they are meant as consumables. The needles are 0.8 mm long and 0.35 mm wide, pyrimidal spikes. Definitely too shallow to cause bleeding but that's still quite intimate contact.
stcredzero 5y ago
I'm also concerned about how such devices will affect and be affected by cavitation. Cavitation inside the skull has been found to happen in concussion injuries in explosions. It's also thought that it can happen with the smaller impulses coming from punches and everyday impacts. Are the devices subject to cavitation, particularly the long, thin parts, and what happens to those long thin parts inside the brain when they are subjected to cavitation? EDIT: This device is only penetrating the scalp, but other devices like Neuralink penetrate into the brain.
- kortex 5y ago
  It's barely even penetrating the scalp. The needles (really better described as spikes, they have a fair amount of draft, about 20°) only puncture the strateum corneum - outer layer of dead skin cells and lipids.
- mattkrause 5y ago
  This particular device doesn’t even penetrate al the way through the scalp, so the skull would likely obliterate these long before they reach the brain. Motion is a problem for things that are inserted into the brain, but people have been getting DBS and sEEG implants for 30 years, and it’s manageable, though not totally solved.

58x14 5y ago

I have a Muse 2 [1] and a Flowtime [2]; both are consumer-oriented portable EEGs using Bluetooth to transmit data displayed on their respective mobile apps. The Muse hardware is seriously inhibited by the same user-exploitative trends we see everywhere, accompanied by meaningless promises. Many researchers used the Muse SDK and API until they discontinued it in 2019 [3] in favor of Muse Direct - another way to force users to feed Muse their data and lock them into a subscription. Unsurprisingly, this was also abandoned [4] and they claim "We're working on a solution that allows you to collect raw EEG data using the free to download" app, which would still allow Muse complete control over your authentication, use and data. Ugh. At least the community has reverse-engineered the LSL protocol and built a Python package [5]. Flowtime claimed that it offers a closed API, as they don't have the resources to maintain an open API [6]. I remember somewhere they claimed it was on their roadmap, but I searched again today and couldn't find any support of their claim. BrainBit [7] and NextMind [8] seem to provide more robust developer tools, although I have no experience. Naturally, each of these runs more than double the ~$200 cost of the Muse and Flowtime devices. I have no formal neurological education but I strongly believe non-invasive EEGs, combined with novel, gamified training techniques coupled with machine learning will usher in a new era of digital interactions. Like the transition from tactile smartphone keypads to the eventually-ubiquitous full touchscreen, I expect many design iterations in both hardware and software will produce utterly fascinating products. I can't wait to get excited again for a product launch. [1] https://choosemuse.com/muse-2/ https://choosemuse.com/muse-2/ [2] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flowtime-biosensing-meditation-headband#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flowtime-biosensing-medit... [3] https://github.com/sccn/labstreaminglayer/issues/30 https://github.com/sccn/labstreaminglayer/issues/30 [4] https://choosemuse.force.com/s/article/Muse-Direct-Subscription-Update?language=en_US https://choosemuse.force.com/s/article/Muse-Direct-Subscript... [5] https://github.com/alexandrebarachant/muse-lsl https://github.com/alexandrebarachant/muse-lsl [6] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/987756376/flowtime-biosensing-meditation-headband/comments https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/987756376/flowtime-bios... [7] https://sdk.brainbit.com/ https://sdk.brainbit.com/ [8] https://www.next-mind.com/developer/ https://www.next-mind.com/developer/

refulgentis 5y ago
I've been kicking around getting one of these for years, the deciding factor for me is essentially "what kind of demos can you pull off with these?" ex. a simple "yes / no" detector would be meh, pointer control would be amazing, some sort of mood detector/brain trainer type apps would be _awesome_ since it'd be producing value for me

zzzzzzzza 5y ago

i just want as much bandwidth and accuracy through a bci as i can get with a keyboard

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

perl4ever 5y ago

(I think this is something different, but possibly of interest to people whose imagination is captured by electronic interfaces with the nervous system) "A research team led by a 2018 BBRF Young Investigator, Sung Il Park, Ph.D., reports that it has developed and tested a new technology enabling unprecedented exploration of nerve-cell function inside organs of the body outside of the brain. The new technology, called optoelectronics, uses tiny wireless implantable devices to manipulate the activity of individual nerve cells in the organs of awake, freely moving animals. This makes possible experiments with the power to reveal the specific (and often multiple) functions of different kinds of nerve cells in the body's periphery." https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/new-technology-enables-manipulation-neurons-peripheral-organs-and-reveals-mechanism-appetite https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/new-technology-enables...

RandomWorker 5y ago

Idk if I was a kid I would be playing around with this tech. Sadly, as an adult I am just scared of this tech. So funny how 20 years changes your brain and perception of tech. 100% a younger me would be in my ceiling room soldering stuff like this together and hooking it up to pc somehow.

nexuist 5y ago
Focus more on what you want to see: there are great uses for this tech that would make life better. You can be apart of building it or you can support the people and organizations that are in this for the right reasons.

jelling 5y ago

All I want is to never have to look for the right window again while switching apps. Such a tiny but constant tax on focus.