It's an idea straight out of "Star Trek": controlling a machine using nothing but your mind. If someone told you they were going to do it here and now, you might be excused for thinking they had been watching a little too much television.
But like so many technical notions that first appeared in science fiction, the brain-controlled computer is fast becoming a reality. Advances in neurological research and the declining costs of sensors and wireless computer components have spawned the first generation of commercial mind-control products, along with related products that rely on other bodily signals.
Many of the new systems utilize electrical brain waves--either alpha, beta or mu waves--to control video games or the movement of a cursor on a computer screen. Other devices pick up on pulse, blood pressure or eye movements to handle operations that are normally carried out with a mouse or a keyboard.
Neurophysiologists and computer scientist believe these new systems could provide an important means of communications for disabled people whose ability to move and speak is severely impaired. They also could provide some interesting new entertainment possibilities. And they are helping researchers explore a fascinating metaphysical mystery: the extent to which human intention alone can alter the physical world.
"We've become so dependent on electronic circuitry to store and process information, that we're very familiar with all kinds of ways to insulate that information . . . from electromagnetic fields, cosmic radiation, thermal fluctuation, etc.," says Barbara Dunne, a researcher at Princeton University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. "But what about a human sitting there, watching numbers on the screen? What effect does someone who desires a particular outcome have?"
Already, the person sitting there can have considerable influence over a computer--if they have electrodes like those used in an electroencephalogram (EEG) hooked up to their scalps.
"We're using the electrical activity that the brain produces when it's active--in the range of millionths of volts--that can be recorded from the scalp," explains Jonathan Wolpaw, a neurophysiologist and director of the Wadsworth Center for Laboratories and Research of the New York Department of Health in Albany. "Over a period of weeks, we teach people to control a particular component of the EEG and use it to move a cursor around a computer screen to specific targets presented on the screen."
In Wolpaw's research, participants are hooked up to an EEG, which is in turn linked to a computer running a special software program called Gabriel. The subjects are presented with a cursor in the middle of a video screen, and a target in one corner. They use trial-and-error thoughts--imagining, for example, running, shooting baskets or floating--to try and shift the cursor to the target.
When they hit on a thought that works, they stick with it. According to Wolpaw, moving the cursor eventually becomes second nature, as automatic as moving your arm to pick something up. The goal is to develop a way for people who are totally or partially paralyzed to at least do some very simple things, such as say yes or no.
Others involved with brain-powered technologies have even more expansive goals. Ron Gordon, founder of The Other 90 Percent Inc., a Sausalito-based start-up firm, has invented the MindDrive, a finger pad worn like a ring that responds to the electrical impulses generated by the nervous system.
These impulses--known as galvanic skin response, the same signals recorded by lie detector tests--are filtered through sophisticated software that uses the impulses to control right-left or up-down motion of specially designed computer games. As with the EEG based devices, it's a process of trial and error: "It's like riding a bicycle," says Gordon. "You get better with practice."
The company, whose name refers to the portion of the human brain believed to be underutilized, plans to begin selling the MindDrive next year--bundled with games and the appropriate hardware to connect the device to a Windows personal computer--for under $200. Gordon sees it eventually becoming a general purpose alternative to the mouse and keyboard.
Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyzer (IBVA) Technologies Inc., a New York City-based company, is also a pioneer in commercializing mind-control technologies. The firm's product, a small, wireless device that "reads" EEG-type brain waves and is attached to a PC, comes packaged with an interactive film whose plot unfolds according to emotional cues from the viewer.
Two IBVA applications are currently available: a one-channel application that costs $1,295 and a two-channel for $2,295. Helen Meschkow, IBVA vice president of technical and customer reports, says people who have experience meditating, which involves switching brain wave frequencies, have the best control over the technology.
