As a kid, I always wanted to grow up to be the Flash, Kara Danvers, Black Panther, or Chase from Lab Rats.
Fast forward 8 years, I discover the field of Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI), and I feel closer to having superpowers than I thought possible.
Wait, what is a BCI?
This was my reaction when I first heard about it a couple months ago too. A BCIs essentially connects your brain data to a computer, allowing us to analyze, manipulate, and control devices like your computer— literally mind control.
BCIs could be the most important technological breakthrough in years, putting a smile on severely disabled people, and pushing the limitations of our everyday lifestyle.
Sounds too good to be true? Well, let’s dive into the functionalities of BCIs, the science behind it, what they mean for the future, and ethical questions to ponder.
Breaking it Down… to Neurons:
Just like how you are on some device reading this article or picking up your mom’s calls, we all communicate to each other in some ways or form. Our body functions by communicating through long cells called neurons. Our neurons are always at work every time we think, feel, or do anything.
Neurons are the building blocks of the nervous system, and are comprised of 3 key parts:
- Soma: The purple circle in the middle of the neuron in the image above. The Soma is the cell’s main body and life/power support, containing the mitochondria, DNA, ribosomes, and all the necessary things needed to survive and function.
- Axon: A long fiber sometimes protected with a Myelin Sheath. The Axon does all the talking, except it uses electrical impulses to communicate to other neurons, cells, muscles, etc.
- Dendrites: These are responsible for receiving messages from other cells, gossiping the information they find to its cell. They pick up signals either stimulated by a sensory input, or triggered by neighboring neurons. This signal activates the neuron’s action potential.
The activated action potential from the dendrites is how all the good stuff happens. An action potential is is basically a rise or fall in electrical voltage across the cell membrane. This voltage change can be measured and translated onto an output device, AKA a brain computer interface. Based on this information, we can look at real time data to perform specific demands based on our brain activity.
We have around 100 billion neurons in our body… so which neurons control what? Understanding the main areas and functions of our brain are key in the field of BCIs.
The 4 Regions of the Brain:
There are four main regions of our brain that are responsible for many key functions: The Occipital cortex, Parietal cortex, Temporal cortex, and Frontal cortex.
- The Occipital Cortex: This area is where most of our visual brain activity takes place. So if we needed to record data based on whether we saw a flashing light, we would focus on the brain waves coming from the occipital region, and perform some task based on the brain activity there.
- The Parietal Cortex: This region is what relates our body to our environment and surroundings, allowing us to shapes and sizes of objects and people around us, and interpret how external and internal factors relate to our being. Tasks that involve eye/hand movement and coordination or the recognition of shapes and sizes use this area of the brain.
- The Temporal cortex: This region is more involved in your senses, and interpreting feeling, emotions, memories, understanding language and writing, and spacial recognition.
- The Frontal Cortex: This region of our human brains are relatively larger compared to other animals. It is responsible for maintaining control, whether that is planning your day on google calendar or making everyday decisions/behaviors. You can monitor your brain waves in this area to determine whether you are focused or not on a task at hand, maximizing your daily productivity.
Frequencies of the Brain:
The signals in your brain all move at a frequency, and understanding the different frequencies can give insight into the cognitive, affective, or attentional states your mind is in at the moment.
That’s why brain waves are important know. Brain waves, or neural oscillations, are rhythmic activity of neural activity in the central nervous system.
There are 5 different brain waves: Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.
- Delta waves (<4 Hz): Delta waves are filled take over your body when you are in a deep, long sleep. There is a strong positive correlation between higher delta waves and increased concentration on memory tasks, which is why people always tell you to get your sleep, especially for a test/studying for a test.
- Theta waves (4–7 Hz): Theta waves are associated with cognitive actions like long term/short term memory or difficult activities like trying to count forwards while saying the alphabet backwards. Also, unlike delta waves, theta waves are present when you are tired and have not gotten much rest.
- Alpha waves (7–12 Hz): Alpha waves take over when you feel calm and relaxed, which is why you’ve probably seen those relaxing videos on youtube saying they use Alpha waves to calm you.
- Beta waves (12–30 Hz): Beta waves are prominent whenever we intentionally move our body, and even as we observe other people’s movement.
- Gamma waves (>30 Hz): Normally around 40 Hz, gamma waves are present either in an exchange between the use of brain regions, or quick tiny movements, such as blinking your eye rapidly. These sensory details are helpful if you want to mind control something on your computer using just your eye movements.
The Process:
This basic knowledge of our brain sets the foundation for understanding and actually using Brain Computer Interfaces, but we have to know what to do with this knowledge and how it will help.
There are 4 steps that really help us encompass this knowledge and utilize it
- Signal Production: The first step is to simply generate the signals you want. So if you want to imagine a circle or move your eyes, you need someone to do this in the first place so that you have waves to look at.
- Signal Detection: This is where we would use some kind of technology to detect and record these brain signals, so for example, EEGs (electroencephalograms) are a very common type of BCI which focuses on the electrical activity, and also fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging), which focus on the blood-flow in the brain. There are other options as well but with varying factors, such as temporal resolution (real-time processing) and spatial recognition (accuracy of specific location of brain activity). I’ll go more in depth on different BCIs later in this article.
- Signal Processing: One common issue with our brain activity is that there is a lot of stuff going on in our head and neurons firing everywhere all the time. We often are not aware or in control of a lot of our movements like small facial muscle movements, blinking, grinding our teeth, etc. This noise needs to be filtered out in order to see a meaningful change in brain activity. This is where Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning come in handy, as it can help sort out irrelevant waves, making the charts easier for us to understand.
- Signal Output: The signals we receive in this data can be used to help solve unique problems in our world like helping the disabled community or even with small tasks like simple mindfulness and meditation. This is why the field of BCIs hold a high potential for innovation, providing unique solutions to huge, well-known problems in the world.
Different Types of BCI:
There are three ways we can record and capture the data of our brain: Non-invasive, semi-invasive, and invasive.
- Invasive: These devices are basically what they sound like: invasive. These devices are directly inserted into your brain by surgery.
- Semi-invasive: These devices are like the middle-ground. These types of devices are inserted just at the top of your skull. An example of this type of BCI is Elon Musk’s company, Neuralink. Their technology is very small, about the size of a coin, and super thin electrode threads penetrate the outer layer of your brain to pick up brain signals.
- Non-invasive: These devices are the most common and favorable by people who are starting out and don’t want any of their brain touched by it. Some popular examples of non-invasive BCI headsets available to anyone are OpenBCI or the Muse Headbands. In 2019, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University were able to non-invasively mind-control a robotic arm, which is a big step forward in benefiting paralyzed patients and other applications.
Real World Applications:
BCIs are most commonly relevant to the clinical field, automotive industry, and even entertainment. They have helped blind people see patterns and recognize what is around them, help paralyzed patients have control over robotic body parts, diagnose neurological diseases, treat dementia or ADHD, prevent car crashes, and so much more. BCIs can also be used in entertainment, where you can play video games with your mind and even combining it with Virtual Reality (VR), enhancing a whole new experience.
People have been taking action in this field, including Elon Musk.
Neuralink: Elon Musk’s neuroscience startup, Neuralink was made to “push the boundaries of neural engineering.” Their initial plan is to use brain computer interfaces (fused with AI) to help people with spinal cord injury, Alzheimer’s, and Dementia. As their technologies develop, they will be able to access more areas of the brain, extract more data, and scale to treat even more neurological disorders.
Neuralink’s design for the neural implant is invasive, but they claim it has a lot of functionalities in the near future that’s kinda mind blowing.
Their technology looks like the image on the left, where there will be many micron-scale threads, each with many electrodes to detect neuron signals. They are implanted in areas of the brain involved in movement.
Many other features that Neuralink claims for the future is wireless bluetooth connection and charging, an app that directly connects to your brain with training game exercises. Their goal is to help people communicate with their brain in text, writing, art, anything. I know. The future sounds like it’s straight out of a sci-fi movie.
Other interesting companies in this industry include Neurospace and Emotiv:
- Neurospace: This company aims to use BCIs to help people with Epilepsy. It works by monitoring your brain activity for 24 hours, recognizes unique patterns in brain activity to respond accordingly, and records this data for your doctor to see.
- Emotiv: This company uses BCI technology (including apps, VR, and AR), to bring relaxation and empower our minds.
Is the future of BCIs ethical?
Hearing the future of BCIs sounds like a whole different reality, and just like any other new emerging technology, there are interesting questions of ethics to consider.
A major thing to think about is how we are basically cyborgs with this technology. We are putting synthetic parts inside our organic beings, and with no historical or evolution data, how would we know our bodies will react to this technology. What would be the social, political, and ethical rules around a cyborg community? How would our every day societal interactions will change?
If we are thinking even further into the future, even more questions come up like, will privacy be lost in humanity? Will we have less control over our thoughts? Can we trust BCIs to be secure and reliable? Could our brain get hacked? Could data get stolen?
These could all be valid questions, or, if you think about it form another perspective, they could seem pretty far-fetched. We don’t know everything about the brain, and our technology is still developing in this field. It’s not like technological advancements changing our world are not unheard of. No one from the 19th century would have guessed that we could talk to our phones or communicate to someone across the world with just a metal, rectangular box.
Overall, the future is unclear, and asking these questions, weighing the positive and negative as a community, are all important as continue to innovate, thinking outside of the box and diving into uncharted territories.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article on Brain Computer Interfaces! If you found this helpful, give it a clap and feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Sources: