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DIY Neurotech: Making BCI open-source thrusts brain-signal into a maker’s world
- rahimnathwani 3y agoI wonder how long it will be before something like this can interface with the brain with electrodes that go into the brain (like Neuralink) instead of on the surface? Then 'all' we need is a plugin for Obsidian.
- meindnoch 3y agoAs soon as we figure out how to prevent fatal brain infections occurring from foreign bodies embedded into your skull!
- bayesian_horse 3y agoIs that actually an issue with current technology? Other implants, like bone replacements or simple screws for orthosynthesis, have higher sterility requirements than a brain implant might have, given that the brain has an easier time fighting infections. And they wouldn't usually implant the electrodes inside the brain but rather on the surface but below the skull. And it's not completely necessary to have a physical connection to the outside. Again, I'm not sure what the current generation of BCI implants are doing, but technically it should be possible to completely close the wound (which may "only" be a small hole drilled into the skull), then use wireless transmission of power and information. Maybe that's not convenient enough right now to get the amount of data required, but it's more than theoretically possible.
- ccooffee 3y ago> given that the brain has an easier time fighting infections [than bones] This doesn't match my understanding at all, but I'm not a medical professional. As far as I know, the brain relies heavily on isolation for protection. One function of the blood-brain barrier[0] is to prevent contamination of the central nervous system from pathogens and toxins. Bacterial meningitis is treatable with proper antibiotics, but still maintains a 10% mortality rate[1]. Additionally, simple mechanical implants (e.g. plates, screws, replacement joints) don't require interfacing with the body. They are often made of solid metals which are not bioreactive (e.g. titanium) or coated with bioresistant polymers[2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470351/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470351/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthopedic_plate#Materials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthopedic_plate#Materials
- bayesian_horse 3y agoMy point was that there is a better access for the immune system in the brain. Not that you'd want any infection regardless.
- therein 3y agoBrain is an immune privileged organ so it is the opposite of your intuition. Get an infection into the brain and it is done. > Immune-privileged sites include the central nervous system and brain, the eyes and the testes. Even foreign antigens accessing these tissues do not generally trigger immune responses. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/immune-privilege#:~:text=Immune%2Dprivileged%20sites%20include%20the,not%20generally%20trigger%20immune%20responses https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-a....
- bayesian_horse 3y agoIt's immune-privileged. There's plenty of access for immune-cells. Some infections like with Gondoplasma are quite survivable. By comparison, even a few bacterial cells in the wrong place during certain bone/joint replacement surgeries causes major issues.
- meindnoch 3y agoNo. Any type of foreign body is inaccessible to the immune system, therefore prone to harbor sources of chronic infections, like bacterial biofilms. "A significant proportion of medical implants become the focus of a device-related infection, difficult to eradicate because bacteria that cause these infections live in well-developed biofilms." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16353112/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16353112/ No thanks, I don't want this anywhere near my central nervous system.
- toss1 3y ago>>brain has an easier time fighting infections [vs bones] While the brain has better blood supply than the hard outer parts of bones, which tends to accelerate healing, the brain also relies heavily on the blood-brain barrier to keep out many threats. Crossing the blood-brain barrier is a big deal, and we shouldn't assume automatically that it'll heal better. >>it's not completely necessary to have a physical connection to the outside INDEED! This is completely key, as having a continuous surface breaking to just under the skin is a huge infection problem that must be continually cleaned and monitored, and having one right into the brain is a truly scary high-risk proposition. So successfully encapsulating and sealing it behind the blood-brain barrier is essential. The problem is that this means wireless communication at a meaningful data rate, through the meninges encasing the brain, the scull, and scalp. This means power consumption, power supply, and necessary power supply replacement operations - into the brain, again. The biology side is not trivial, even as we advance the electronics side, but I'm very much looking forward to these hurdles being overcome!
- bayesian_horse 3y agoElectrodes would usually be mounted on the surface of the brain, outside the blood-brain barrier of course. That's plenty close enough for most purposes.
- toss1 3y agoThat'd help, but it is really not the same as fine electrodes talking to just one or a pair or triplet of neurons. Once we're out there, we're either using an array and a lot of signal processing (sort of reverse synthetic aperture radar processing) to identify detailed signals, or just using aggregate signals. In which case, why not use more gathering points and processing power and just go outside the scalp, avoiding infection problems entirely?
- spicybright 3y agoSo has have the market for raspis mellowed out yet? Last I checked the past few years made them near impossible to get as industrial orders got priority over hobbyists.
- genpfault 3y agoDoesn't look good[1]. [1]: https://rpilocator.com/?country=US&cat=PI4 https://rpilocator.com/?country=US&cat=PI4
- jeron 3y agothis has to be forecasting mismanagement at this point. The chip shortage has mostly come to an end, they're either severely underforecasting from incompetence or intentionally
- nibbleshifter 3y agoThere's still shortages of a whole bunch of random parts (wireless chips, etc). Unsure if its actually impacting Pi manufacturing specifically, but its hit some other products I want.
- i-use-nixos-btw 3y agoI don’t even think it’s a forecasting issue at this point. It’s a lack of a plan B. In this time they could have launched new products that make the most of available supply. They didn’t. They could have recognised the hit that their b2b-first distribution model has had on their reputation and tried to make amends. They didn’t. They could have coordinated with the alt-board suppliers to make “RPi approved” models for the Rock Pi, Orange Pi etc as a stop gap. They didn’t. Hell, they could have bumped costs up a bit to spend on mitigating supply issues, reduce demand and burn scalpers. They didn’t. So instead they just keep promising, just keep delaying, and we keep waiting. Even if their supply issues are through no fault of their own, it feels like they aren’t even trying.
- DoingIsLearning 3y agoThe Raspberry foundation at this point is no diferent from TI's Beagleboard, a veneer of educational project who's core business is to cater for industrial clients. Perhaps I'm being too cynical in lumping it with BeagleBoard but at this point to me the bbc micro:bit + MicroPython is effectively filling the educational void that Raspberry left behind.
- bayesian_horse 3y agoAs far as I know, surface EEG is almost useful in terms of controlling anything. It can even be quite hard not to make the software cheat and work with the much stronger and easier to control signals from muscles. Stuff like that is useful for neurofeedback, however. I haven't tried the newer models of the Mindwave headset, but the older ones were easy to interface with over bluetooth. That's a place I might start rather than building a custom electronics board.
- mkaic 3y agoFascinating, I wasn't aware EEG was so susceptible to signals from outside the brain. I knew it didn't have the highest SNR, but I guess it does make a lot of sense that a big reason for that would be it contamination from electrical impulses from the rest of the body.
- i2pi 3y agoMuscle movements, think talking, chewing, or blinking, generate voltages orders of magnitude higher on the scalp than sources from neural activity inside the skull.
- bayesian_horse 3y agoI would even say EMG is more useful as a HCI channel, except in the most extreme situations like lock-in syndrome or late-stage muscular dystrophy. EMG is way more easy to control consciously and as Humans we probably have hundreds of degrees of freedom in our body for some kind of EMG, not all of it conveniently accessible of course. Controlling what consumer grade EEG devices can pick up is a lot harder. Brainwaves are "feedbackable", but that usually means changes in mental state like awareness, concentration, relaxation and so on.
- bayesian_horse 3y agoI wanted to say "almost not useful" but apparently am not meditating enough recently ;-)
- alright2565 3y agoThis is a really bad idea. There's a direct conductive path between the power supply and the person. Knowing users, the PSU will be a $2 Shenzhen special wall wart rather than a battery pack. At least the other dev kits they compare themselves to have a prominent warning they should only be operated off battery.
- Arrath 3y agoSounds like Big OSHA trying to keep enterprising hackers from giving themselves electrical super powers.
- pedalpete 3y agoTotally agree. When building our EEG system, we have to design it so the user can't have it on their head and plugged in at the same time (for charging). However, it is fairly easy for them to update documentation to clearly say "battery only".
- anonymouse008 3y agoDid anyone listen in to OpenBCIs TED talk today? What was their demo about?
- pedalpete 3y agoI haven't seen it yet, but they've been working on a big project in BCI + VR, so I'm assuming that's mostly what it was about. Our team used to work in metaverse tech, and now we work in BCI (for sleep), so I'm have some experience with both areas.
- anonymouse008 3y agoLearn as much as you can from Dreem - there’s just something about the sleep space that’s a tough nut to crack. Even with the shocking restful night of sleep with mouth tape (a visceral need fulfilled), I’ll still forget nights and rip it off. That’s much smaller and “more convenient” than a headset.
- pedalpete 3y agoYup, we looked closely at Dreem and Philips SmartSleep which both implemented the same core science. As we see it, they made 3 big mistakes 1) awful ridiculous looking product nobody wanted to be seen in 2) way to expensive to want to try 3) not picking a target market - hey, everyone needs sleep! We've addressed each of these
- anonymouse008 3y agoYep - those are the issues - would happily be an alpha/beta or theta customer customer if that’s ever helpful ;) Good luck
- pedalpete 3y agoThe question is, do you fit into one of our target user groups, and in one of our target geographies? Send me an email firstname[at]our url - or hit me up on linkedin https://linkedin.com/in/pedalpete https://linkedin.com/in/pedalpete Cheers
- yummypaint 3y agoThis is a different technology that uses optical methods, but the ninja FNIRS project is very exciting and open source. They seem to have a solid and modular hardware design. I know someone who uses a commercial NIRS instrument in a clinical research setting and they said this open source system looks far more capable. https://openfnirs.org/hardware/ninjanirs/ https://openfnirs.org/hardware/ninjanirs/
- mhb 3y agoDoes it say anywhere on that web site WTF fNIRS is? "OpenfNIRS is driven by the community to support the community in the use of fNIRS." Edit: They sort of mention it, apparently en passant, on https://openfnirs.org/standards/ https://openfnirs.org/standards/: "Shared Near Infrared Spectroscopy Format (SNIRF) is designed by the community in an effort to facilitate sharing and analysis of NIRS data."
- EEBio 3y agoSome extra context: EEG has poor spatial resolution, but great time resolution. It measures electrical activity. fNIRS has a great spatial resolution, but poor time resolution. It measures blood flow in specific parts of the brain.
- pizza 3y agofunctional Near Infrared Spectroscopy, like fMRI
- mkaic 3y agoThis is super fascinating. I've been itching to get into BCI hacking recently, I've got some ideas regarding deep learning integrations and it makes me happy to know that if I could just get my act together, there is consumer-available hardware I could use to start messing around with!
- Mark_Frenk 3y agohow control robot toy with this device https://youtu.be/wNgCEKIXGUY https://youtu.be/wNgCEKIXGUY
- Mark_Frenk 3y agoand sources https://github.com/HackerBCI/EEGwithRaspberryPI https://github.com/HackerBCI/EEGwithRaspberryPI
- codetrotter 3y agoI was looking at brain wave (EEG) sensors on AliExpress recently. But I couldn’t tell if spending hundreds plus euros on those sensors would be worth it or not.. so for now I did not order any of them Also I am a little bit afraid that some of those EEG devices on AliExpress could accidentally fry my brain so there’s that as well..
- mcshicks 3y agoYou might consider trying a muse 2. I bought one used on eBay for $125. There is a very good app mind monitor you can see what's going on quickly and get captures and python options like muse-lsl for doing your own capture and analysis.
- danielheath 3y agoInducing enough magnetic flux to create dangerous eddy currents in the brain is not a problem you can get without a custom power plant and extensive cooling for the superconductors (and even then). You need a field strength around 15 teslas.
- skeaker 3y agoHN never fails to surprise me with comments like these that can dole out exact numbers for very niche and specific hypotheticals. How on earth do you know all of that?
- mkaic 3y agoIsn't it obvious? They're the Brain Frier! Not the most... refined supervillain name, I'll admit. But menacing nonetheless.
- ccooffee 3y agoI'm not the person you're responding to, but my "strong magnets aren't lethal to people" knowledge is based (in part) on a Veritasium YouTube video[0] where they visit the "World's Strongest Magnet" and do shenanigans. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0amdIcZt5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0amdIcZt5I
- charcircuit 3y agoSensing signals inside of the brain are much less exciting to me compare to writing signals via people's eye balls and ears or reading signals from people's various muscles. Measuring how "focused" or "stressed" someone is is too much of a gimmick to me.
- vasco 3y agoYou can do that from EEG. You usually get an API which exposes a number of wave "channels". Depending on the person, if you for example make your hand into a fist, you might get an isolated spike on one of the channels. When developing custom controls based on these signals it's difficult to find actions that will make a channel or combination of channels spike consistently, but you may end up with like, "press tongue to top of mouth" for yes, "make right hand into a fist" for no kinds of things. This is from some minor diy experimentation a few years ago, might be out of date.
- charcircuit 3y agoNot well. Feel free to prove me wrong. Doing more localized measurement of your hands or your tongue will give you much more accurate readings of what it's actually doing and you can build a proper control scheme.
- pedalpete 3y agoOpen-BCI has had their Ganglion board available for years, and it is also open-sourced hardware and software. It's more expensive than the PiEEG, but this probably isn't as new as the headline suggests. As discussed in a thread a few weeks ago, the hardware often isn't the challenging or expensive part of building a BCI system. Electrodes and a softgoods system to reliably hold them in place comfortably is a big challenge. The off the shelf pre-build components are expensive, uncomfortable, and/or unreliable (from our experience). We're building a sleep wearable EEG headband which monitors sleep state and uses auditory stimulation to increase deep sleep in realtime (https://soundmind.co https://soundmind.co). We started by working with the Open-BCI board. It was a good starting point, but once we tried to get it on our heads and sleep with it (not lying next to us on the bed), we needed to move to our own custom hardware. That was not a big challenge. A month after that decision, we had a custom board. But electrodes, and keeping electrodes in place, that's where the challenge is. Off the shelf stuff is either uncomfortable and expensive, or not of high enough quality to use in EEG. We've had to not only design our own electrodes, but also the system to hold them in place comfortably while sleeping. Many other BCI devices don't have the "sleeping" requirement, but it is still a PITA to get things going on an average users head. Emotiv (also a local Sydney, Australia company) has some great devices which can be easily used - but I don't think they give direct access to the data. By all means, people should play with the BCI tech, but just know that if you think you're going to buy a board, and use it in an environment where the person is not very still, you are going to run into lots of issues.
- Mark_Frenk 3y agoi DONT SEE YOUR BOARDS AND ELECTRODES, CAN YOU SHARE LINKS
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