6 ms·

Implant lets those with severe paralysis send texts with just their minds

185 points by ohjeez 4y ago

texaslonghorn5 4y ago
> The year-long human trials for Synchron's BCI system have been peer-reviewed by a neuroscience medical journal in Australia(opens in new tab), where the study found the technology safe and signal quality didn't degrade for its Australian patients. The study also concludes that "the favorable safety profile could promote wider and more rapid translation of BCI to people with paralysis." We'll give it about another year before someone's running Doom on it. could not find full text for free unfortunately
- dmurray 4y ago
  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2799839 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2... worked for me, but perhaps it's paywalled for some.
ed25519FUUU 4y ago
I love to see news like this. I had a serious brain injury that could have left me paralyzed (or dead). Thankfully I'm okay, but it's made me very empathetic to everyone out there living with severe paralysis.
- _zze1 4y ago
  Do you have brain fog? If so, is there anything you could recommend? I was attacked and have had post concussion syndrome for almost a year, with no sign of improvement for about 6 months, that's more or less destroyed my academic and intellectual potential.
  - iamflimflam1 4y ago
    Might be worth having a look at the Strange Parts YouTuber - he suffered severe concussion after an accident with serious brain fog and has managed to come out the other side. I believe he used these guys: https://www.cognitivefxusa.com/ https://www.cognitivefxusa.com/ or maybe these guys: https://neuraleffects.com/ https://neuraleffects.com/ No idea if this would be covered by your health insurance (assuming you're USA). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs790JOeN3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs790JOeN3Y
LeifCarrotson 4y ago
I've done some testing with ECG sensors adhered to the scalp and know what noisy, limited signals that gives you, but man am I looking forward to the day when people can send data from their brain directly to a computer. I don't mind shaving my head (I'm male in a family with a history of male pattern baldness, if that matters) but I'd 100x prefer a device that lived outside the scalp to one with probes beneath the skull. The amplifier fidelity and data processing rate of eg. TI ADS1299 chips that I worked with 10 years ago is only going up slowly, but (now outside the field) it feels like the data processing potential to turn extremely noisy and hard to measure waveforms into letters and words could move forwards extremely fast with AI.
- m463 4y ago
  I loved what ctrl-labs was doing, where they could read what your fingers wanted to do from an arm sensor. Not only was it supposed to be a great virtual keyboard, but it allowed some users to sprout a third virtual arm. Unfortunately they were bought by facebook and then... nothing. and if they do come out with something, you know it will be locked into their platform.
  - dvngnt_ 4y ago
    at meta connect they showed someone playing a mobile game (maybe temple run or subway surfers) with their mind
- com2kid 4y ago
  Hot take: The metaverse will take off when bi-directional BCI takes off. I also think the smart players are trying to stake claims right now with in the software landscape, and keep holding on until HW improves, at least I hope no one actually thinks the current head mounted display system is the way forward! I'd look at HMD VR as the equivalent of black and white resistive screen Palm Pilots that communicate with IR. The foundational ideas are there, but smartphones were the revolution.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    Totally agree that we are decades away from either.
neogodless 4y ago
I really want to know more about the control the patient has over the interface. i.e. if I think think something stupid, I still control whether my mouth lets that out (typically). Do they have control over mode of operation, like they think "OK Synchron!" and then issue some speech?
- idopmstuff 4y ago
  This is a really great point. I feel like I have three levels of thought - unconscious, unprompted and active. Unconscious are what you'd imagine - I don't actively think them (like I don't hear the thought in my head), but clearly something's happening in my brain that's affecting my actions. Unprompted and active are both things that I hear in my inner monologue or picture in my head. The former, as the name would suggest, are things that I'm not trying to think about - intrusive thoughts are certainly an example. The latter are things that I am purposely shaping my thoughts around. Active thoughts are almost the only thing that come out of my mouth (if I'm very surprised, an unprompted thought might come out). Would I have that same level of control here?
  - flangola7 4y ago
    I wonder how it works for those of us without an internal monologue.
  - jvanderbot 4y ago
    In past experiments that I'm aware of, you steered the cursor, or typed a letter, by using a few seconds of _visualizing_ a sort of "command image". The command image recall would essentially generate a recognizable signal in a sensor array that is in a cap the patient wears.
  - ghostbrainalpha 4y ago
    You would definitely have that level of control. These signals don't map to your inner monologue but they can pick up your intention to physically do something. So if you think LEFT, you can move the selector on the keyboard to the next key to the left. And if you think CLICK, you can trigger a click. But you are focusing on asking your hand to physically make that click. Which your hand can't do obviously, but they can track those neurons to simulate the action for you.
mariodiana 4y ago
Just yesterday I was rewatching an old Star Trek episode, "The Menagerie," where the story centers around this poor victim of an accident ("delta rays") who is confined to a wheelchair, in a near-vegetable state, with only the ability to trigger a light: once for YES, twice for NO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_(Star_Trek:_The_... Okay, still no flying cars—but we really ought to take stock in the many ways our present has already exceeded expectations from our recent past of even our distant future.
- kuschku 4y ago
  If you liked that episode, you might want to see the show "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds", which tells the story of the crew before Kirk, and how the Captain of that crew (Pike) got into that position
- iamflimflam1 4y ago
  The episode always struck me as very strange - all that advanced technology - but all they can do is give this guy a single light.
  - amatecha 4y ago
    Yeh if you can trigger a light you can send morse code, to say the least (I don't remember the episode so I don't recall the mechanism of triggering the light, maybe morse wouldn't work)...
  - antonvs 4y ago
    Most of the Star Trek writers really didn’t care about technology. The space environment was just a backdrop for human and human vs. alien drama. Evidence of that is how they used to add something along the lines of “insert technobabble here” in the scripts, for someone to fill in later. But that didn’t allow for any technical input on the nature of the scripts. The exceptions might be some of the scripts written by sci-fi writers, like the one written by Harlan Ellison - but he hated that episode. When he won the Hugo Award for it, he dedicated the award to “the memory of the script they butchered, and in respect to those parts of it that had the vitality to shine through the evisceration.”
MH15 4y ago
Site hijacks the back button.
ricardobeat 4y ago
> The Syncron Switch is meant to be less invasive than other BCIs like Neuralink While it is a direct brain implant, Neuralink’s goal is to have it done 100% by robots, no neurosurgeons involved (with their hands at least). Their device is also so tiny that it’s hard to say it’s more invasive then pushing something through your veins + a chest implant…
- thelastquestion 4y ago
  As of right now, there is a lot more safety data in humans supporting the use of stents in vasculature, and because it is outside the brain (in the vessels), the blood-brain barrier is never broken. There also a lot of safety data regarding putting devices in the fleshy parts of your chest/abdomen. So I think it’s fair to say it’s less invasive than opening the skull and breaking the blood-brain barrier. That may or may not translate to riskier/safer, but with the data that exists right now I’d say it does carry less risk than a more invasive technology. At the end of the day, it will come down to risk vs. benefit, where invasive technologies have demonstrated far greater efficacy thus far.
AussieWog93 4y ago
Thomas Oxley? Endovascular? Looks like they finally commercialised the stentrode! I remember seeing the initial trials of this back in the day. Basically functions like a slightly worse ECoG sensor (since the signal still gets filtered by the dura), but much easier to install. Think best case performance of about 80 binary inputs per minute, or a really noisy cursor input. Honestly, without the improvement in algorithms they were hoping for, there's not a snowball's chance in hell of this playing Doom within 5 years, let alone one. There's still fundamental unsolved problems (like the fact that ~20% of people simply can't Motor Imagery BCIs no matter how hard they try, and a massive chunk of those who can produce incredibly noisy signals), but new sensors are always a step in the right direction (as opposed to new algorithms, which, in this field, are almost always complete bullshit.)
paulpauper 4y ago
Just be careful not to accidently leak your passwords or 12-word crypto keys . It's like a hot mic but worse. If such technology becomes more commonplace, and not just for paralyzed people, this will be a problem.
- version_five 4y ago
  The article doesn't specify how it works, but my guess is that you're controlling some typing or word selection in a learned way, like eg how Stephen Hawking talked but with some eeg input instead of muscle movement. You're not broadcasting your thoughts.
  - CyborgCabbage 4y ago
    It only registers a binary input (e.g. mouse-click); their YouTube[0] shows a patient using it in conjunction with eye-tracking. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm95r05hui0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm95r05hui0
dmitriid 4y ago
So, how long before the company goes out of business and leaves patients stranded? See what happened to ocular implants from Second Sight https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60416058 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60416058
pelorat 4y ago
Still don't understand how this company got FDA approval before Neuralink.
- Pigalowda 4y ago
  Is it FDA approved? I thought it was Australian?
  - thelastquestion 4y ago
    Yes, they have IDE approval in the US for a clinical trial, after first conducting a trial in Australia.
- thelastquestion 4y ago
  There are a lot of factors going into an approval — a couple that may be relevant here: (i) Synchron had clinical (in human) results from Australia before submitting to the FDA. (ii) Synchron’s underlying mechanical device is a stent. A million Americans per year get a stent installed, so there is a lot of existing data demonstrating the safety of stents. (iii) the procedure is basically a typical stent installation and less risky in many ways than open brain surgery. Notably Neuralink built a surgical robot to aid in the installation of their implant but that is yet another product that needs to be approved. Thus, I’d imagine Neuralink’s submission is vastly more complicated.
CyborgCabbage 4y ago
YouTube video I found with more info https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm95r05hui0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm95r05hui0
pugworthy 4y ago
Sort of thread cross-posting this, but it's a bit odd to combine the idea of this post with the one on human mind control of rats. Paralyzed people controlling other creatures via their minds. Sort of a cyberpunk familiar / spirit animal.
rawbert 4y ago
This is great news. I am suffering myself from some kind of neurological issue which hasn't be diagnosed yet but dirty EMG, brisk reflexes, hand muscle wasting might already foreshadow paralysis. Ending up completely locked-in must be one of the worst fates for a human being and this technology gives hope.
inglor_cz 4y ago
I can't help but think "there goes the last remaining bit of human privacy, namely that between your own ears". Ten years from now, all the Presidents for Life around the world will know with a reasonable level of certainty, who actually loves them and who does not. Off to the reeducation/extermination camps with the latter.

185 points by ohjeez 4y ago

> The year-long human trials for Synchron's BCI system have been peer-reviewed by a neuroscience medical journal in Australia(opens in new tab), where the study found the technology safe and signal quality didn't degrade for its Australian patients. The study also concludes that "the favorable safety profile could promote wider and more rapid translation of BCI to people with paralysis." We'll give it about another year before someone's running Doom on it. could not find full text for free unfortunately

dmurray 4y ago
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2799839 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2... worked for me, but perhaps it's paywalled for some.

ed25519FUUU 4y ago

I love to see news like this. I had a serious brain injury that could have left me paralyzed (or dead). Thankfully I'm okay, but it's made me very empathetic to everyone out there living with severe paralysis.

_zze1 4y ago
Do you have brain fog? If so, is there anything you could recommend? I was attacked and have had post concussion syndrome for almost a year, with no sign of improvement for about 6 months, that's more or less destroyed my academic and intellectual potential.
- iamflimflam1 4y ago
  Might be worth having a look at the Strange Parts YouTuber - he suffered severe concussion after an accident with serious brain fog and has managed to come out the other side. I believe he used these guys: https://www.cognitivefxusa.com/ https://www.cognitivefxusa.com/ or maybe these guys: https://neuraleffects.com/ https://neuraleffects.com/ No idea if this would be covered by your health insurance (assuming you're USA). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs790JOeN3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs790JOeN3Y

LeifCarrotson 4y ago

I've done some testing with ECG sensors adhered to the scalp and know what noisy, limited signals that gives you, but man am I looking forward to the day when people can send data from their brain directly to a computer. I don't mind shaving my head (I'm male in a family with a history of male pattern baldness, if that matters) but I'd 100x prefer a device that lived outside the scalp to one with probes beneath the skull. The amplifier fidelity and data processing rate of eg. TI ADS1299 chips that I worked with 10 years ago is only going up slowly, but (now outside the field) it feels like the data processing potential to turn extremely noisy and hard to measure waveforms into letters and words could move forwards extremely fast with AI.

m463 4y ago
I loved what ctrl-labs was doing, where they could read what your fingers wanted to do from an arm sensor. Not only was it supposed to be a great virtual keyboard, but it allowed some users to sprout a third virtual arm. Unfortunately they were bought by facebook and then... nothing. and if they do come out with something, you know it will be locked into their platform.
- dvngnt_ 4y ago
  at meta connect they showed someone playing a mobile game (maybe temple run or subway surfers) with their mind
com2kid 4y ago
Hot take: The metaverse will take off when bi-directional BCI takes off. I also think the smart players are trying to stake claims right now with in the software landscape, and keep holding on until HW improves, at least I hope no one actually thinks the current head mounted display system is the way forward! I'd look at HMD VR as the equivalent of black and white resistive screen Palm Pilots that communicate with IR. The foundational ideas are there, but smartphones were the revolution.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Totally agree that we are decades away from either.

neogodless 4y ago

I really want to know more about the control the patient has over the interface. i.e. if I think think something stupid, I still control whether my mouth lets that out (typically). Do they have control over mode of operation, like they think "OK Synchron!" and then issue some speech?

idopmstuff 4y ago
This is a really great point. I feel like I have three levels of thought - unconscious, unprompted and active. Unconscious are what you'd imagine - I don't actively think them (like I don't hear the thought in my head), but clearly something's happening in my brain that's affecting my actions. Unprompted and active are both things that I hear in my inner monologue or picture in my head. The former, as the name would suggest, are things that I'm not trying to think about - intrusive thoughts are certainly an example. The latter are things that I am purposely shaping my thoughts around. Active thoughts are almost the only thing that come out of my mouth (if I'm very surprised, an unprompted thought might come out). Would I have that same level of control here?
- flangola7 4y ago
  I wonder how it works for those of us without an internal monologue.
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  In past experiments that I'm aware of, you steered the cursor, or typed a letter, by using a few seconds of _visualizing_ a sort of "command image". The command image recall would essentially generate a recognizable signal in a sensor array that is in a cap the patient wears.
- ghostbrainalpha 4y ago
  You would definitely have that level of control. These signals don't map to your inner monologue but they can pick up your intention to physically do something. So if you think LEFT, you can move the selector on the keyboard to the next key to the left. And if you think CLICK, you can trigger a click. But you are focusing on asking your hand to physically make that click. Which your hand can't do obviously, but they can track those neurons to simulate the action for you.

mariodiana 4y ago

Just yesterday I was rewatching an old Star Trek episode, "The Menagerie," where the story centers around this poor victim of an accident ("delta rays") who is confined to a wheelchair, in a near-vegetable state, with only the ability to trigger a light: once for YES, twice for NO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_(Star_Trek:_The_... Okay, still no flying cars—but we really ought to take stock in the many ways our present has already exceeded expectations from our recent past of even our distant future.

kuschku 4y ago
If you liked that episode, you might want to see the show "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds", which tells the story of the crew before Kirk, and how the Captain of that crew (Pike) got into that position
iamflimflam1 4y ago
The episode always struck me as very strange - all that advanced technology - but all they can do is give this guy a single light.
- amatecha 4y ago
  Yeh if you can trigger a light you can send morse code, to say the least (I don't remember the episode so I don't recall the mechanism of triggering the light, maybe morse wouldn't work)...
- antonvs 4y ago
  Most of the Star Trek writers really didn’t care about technology. The space environment was just a backdrop for human and human vs. alien drama. Evidence of that is how they used to add something along the lines of “insert technobabble here” in the scripts, for someone to fill in later. But that didn’t allow for any technical input on the nature of the scripts. The exceptions might be some of the scripts written by sci-fi writers, like the one written by Harlan Ellison - but he hated that episode. When he won the Hugo Award for it, he dedicated the award to “the memory of the script they butchered, and in respect to those parts of it that had the vitality to shine through the evisceration.”

MH15 4y ago

Site hijacks the back button.

ricardobeat 4y ago

> The Syncron Switch is meant to be less invasive than other BCIs like Neuralink While it is a direct brain implant, Neuralink’s goal is to have it done 100% by robots, no neurosurgeons involved (with their hands at least). Their device is also so tiny that it’s hard to say it’s more invasive then pushing something through your veins + a chest implant…

thelastquestion 4y ago
As of right now, there is a lot more safety data in humans supporting the use of stents in vasculature, and because it is outside the brain (in the vessels), the blood-brain barrier is never broken. There also a lot of safety data regarding putting devices in the fleshy parts of your chest/abdomen. So I think it’s fair to say it’s less invasive than opening the skull and breaking the blood-brain barrier. That may or may not translate to riskier/safer, but with the data that exists right now I’d say it does carry less risk than a more invasive technology. At the end of the day, it will come down to risk vs. benefit, where invasive technologies have demonstrated far greater efficacy thus far.

AussieWog93 4y ago

Thomas Oxley? Endovascular? Looks like they finally commercialised the stentrode! I remember seeing the initial trials of this back in the day. Basically functions like a slightly worse ECoG sensor (since the signal still gets filtered by the dura), but much easier to install. Think best case performance of about 80 binary inputs per minute, or a really noisy cursor input. Honestly, without the improvement in algorithms they were hoping for, there's not a snowball's chance in hell of this playing Doom within 5 years, let alone one. There's still fundamental unsolved problems (like the fact that ~20% of people simply can't Motor Imagery BCIs no matter how hard they try, and a massive chunk of those who can produce incredibly noisy signals), but new sensors are always a step in the right direction (as opposed to new algorithms, which, in this field, are almost always complete bullshit.)

paulpauper 4y ago

Just be careful not to accidently leak your passwords or 12-word crypto keys . It's like a hot mic but worse. If such technology becomes more commonplace, and not just for paralyzed people, this will be a problem.

version_five 4y ago
The article doesn't specify how it works, but my guess is that you're controlling some typing or word selection in a learned way, like eg how Stephen Hawking talked but with some eeg input instead of muscle movement. You're not broadcasting your thoughts.
- CyborgCabbage 4y ago
  It only registers a binary input (e.g. mouse-click); their YouTube[0] shows a patient using it in conjunction with eye-tracking. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm95r05hui0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm95r05hui0

dmitriid 4y ago

So, how long before the company goes out of business and leaves patients stranded? See what happened to ocular implants from Second Sight https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60416058 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60416058

pelorat 4y ago

Still don't understand how this company got FDA approval before Neuralink.

Pigalowda 4y ago
Is it FDA approved? I thought it was Australian?
- thelastquestion 4y ago
  Yes, they have IDE approval in the US for a clinical trial, after first conducting a trial in Australia.
thelastquestion 4y ago
There are a lot of factors going into an approval — a couple that may be relevant here: (i) Synchron had clinical (in human) results from Australia before submitting to the FDA. (ii) Synchron’s underlying mechanical device is a stent. A million Americans per year get a stent installed, so there is a lot of existing data demonstrating the safety of stents. (iii) the procedure is basically a typical stent installation and less risky in many ways than open brain surgery. Notably Neuralink built a surgical robot to aid in the installation of their implant but that is yet another product that needs to be approved. Thus, I’d imagine Neuralink’s submission is vastly more complicated.

CyborgCabbage 4y ago

YouTube video I found with more info https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm95r05hui0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm95r05hui0

pugworthy 4y ago

Sort of thread cross-posting this, but it's a bit odd to combine the idea of this post with the one on human mind control of rats. Paralyzed people controlling other creatures via their minds. Sort of a cyberpunk familiar / spirit animal.

rawbert 4y ago

This is great news. I am suffering myself from some kind of neurological issue which hasn't be diagnosed yet but dirty EMG, brisk reflexes, hand muscle wasting might already foreshadow paralysis. Ending up completely locked-in must be one of the worst fates for a human being and this technology gives hope.

inglor_cz 4y ago

I can't help but think "there goes the last remaining bit of human privacy, namely that between your own ears". Ten years from now, all the Presidents for Life around the world will know with a reasonable level of certainty, who actually loves them and who does not. Off to the reeducation/extermination camps with the latter.