- A new technology, soon to be tested in Chicago, plugs
the human brain right into a desktop computer. Its remarkable goal: to
enable quadriplegics to use it just by thinking, allowing them to do things
like surf the Web, write e-mails, play video games and operate TV remotes
and telephones, all without moving a muscle.
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- "We can take someone's thought and put it on a screen,"
said Tim Surgenor, chief executive of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems,
manufacturer of the device, which is called BrainGate Neural Interface
System.
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- So far, BrainGate has been tested on one person -- Boston
area quadriplegic Matt Nagle, who now can move a cursor and play the simple
video game Pong.
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- Damage blocks signals
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- The federal Food and Drug Administration is allowing
Cyberkinetics initially to test BrainGate on four people besides Nagle,
all of them quadriplegic. Three centers, including the Rehabilitation Institute
of Chicago, are recruiting volunteers. Dr. David Chen, a Rehab Institute
researcher, hopes to select a volunteer within a month. A surgeon will
drill a hole in the patient's head and implant a chip on the surface of
the part of the brain involved in moving arms and hands.
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- The chip, about the size of a baby aspirin, contains
100 electrode sensors, each thinner than a human hair. The sensors detect
tiny electrical signals generated when a user imagines, for example, that
he's moving the cursor, its manufacturer says.
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- Though paralyzed, a quadriplegic still has the ability
to generate such signals -- they just don't get past the damaged portion
of the spinal cord. With BrainGate, the signals instead travel through
a wire that comes out of the skull and connects to a computer, Cybernetics
says.
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- BrainGate uses technology similar to cochlear implants
that help deaf people hear and deep-brain simulators that treat Parkinson's
disease. Those devices cost $15,000 to $25,000. BrainGate will be "at
least that expensive, and perhaps more," Surgenor said.
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- Volunteers praised
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- Nagle, the first volunteer, was paralyzed in a knife
attack 3-1/2 years ago. The other day, he was able to control a robotic
arm.
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- "I was using my thoughts," he said in an interview
with National Public Radio. "When I wanted it to go left, it would
go left, and, when I wanted it to go right, it would go right."
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- BrainGate sensors will remain in each volunteer for 13
months before being removed. Volunteers face surgical risks such as infections
and brain damage, and it's yet to be shown that the first version of BrainGate
will provide any practical benefit.
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- "We're doing it in the safest and best way we know
how," Surgenor said. "These people who participate deserve a
lot of credit. They're pioneers."
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- Nagle told NPR why he volunteered: "I'm sitting
here at home seven days a week, not doing anything. This doctor sent it
to me, and I took it."
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- About 11,000 people in the United States suffer spinal
cord injuries each year, and about 4,000 wind up paralyzed from the neck
down.
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- Technology already exists for quadriplegics to operate
wheelchairs, computers and some other devices by, for example, sipping
or puffing on a straw or tapping a plate with their heads. But such systems
are slow, Chen said.
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- The first generation of BrainGate, it's hoped, will enable
a user to move a cursor in all four directions and operate a mouse. If
the user wanted to type the letter A, for example, he'd move the cursor
over a keyboard displayed on the screen, then click on the A.
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- Could move arms, hands
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- Future versions of BrainGate could be faster, said Nicholas
Hatsopoulos, a University of Chicago neuroscientist and a Cyberkinetics
founder. The user would need only to think of the letter A, and the letter
would appear on the screen.
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- Farther in the future, BrainGate perhaps could be connected
to a user's arms and hands. When the user imagines he is raising an arm,
electrical signals would be sent to contract the necessary muscles, Hatsopoulos
said.
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- Surgenor hopes to win FDA approval by 2007 to market
BrainGate.
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