Through Electrodes on Brain, Thought Controls Computer Curser
Participants in a study on brain function were able to control a computer cursor through electrodes attached to their brains. These results appeared in the June 14 issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering.
Four patients had a grid of electrodes attached to the surface of their brain for clinical reasons. They volunteered to take part in the study, in which they learned to use thought to control a cursor in a simple video game. All of the volunteers learned in less than a half-hour how to control the cursor, and achieved between 74 percent and 100 percent accuracy.
In the game, the cursor, shaped like a block, automatically moves horizontally across the screen. The patient controls its vertical movement towards the target, which was randomly located in the upper-right or lower-right corner of the screen. The target changes color when the cursor hits it.
Studies such as this hold promise for creating technologies to assist people who have paralysis or other movement disabilities.
The study was conducted by researchers at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, as well as the State University of New York-Albany and the New York State Department of Health. Jeffrey Ojemann, associate professor of neurological surgery at the UW and attending neurosurgeon at Harborview Medical Center and Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, helped conduct the research when he was at Washington University, and is one of the paper's co-authors.
In this short video clip, a patient with electrodes attached to the surface of the brain uses thoughts to control a computer cursor in a simple video game. The cursor automatically moves horizontally across the screen, and the patient controls its vertical movement towards the target, which was randomly located in the upper-right or lower-right corner of the screen.