One of the saddest things with having a family member unconscious is the inability to talk or communicate in any meaningful way. Moreover, these patients can\u2019t express any decision, and it\u2019s often left on the family to decide if they live or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fortunately, a new brain-computer interface (BCI) technology will soon change that. A team at the Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, developed a new technology that can help unconscious people communicate with the \u201coutside world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBrain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are becoming increasingly popular as a tool to improve the quality of life of patients with disabilities. Recently, time-resolved functional near-infrared spectroscopy (TR-fNIRS) based BCIs are gaining traction because of their enhanced depth sensitivity,\u201d said Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist and a professor at the University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Basically, a brain-computer interface can read brain activity and find patterns for different words. In a way, the computer can speak for the person, only by connecting to the brain. The method developed by Owen and his team uses functional near-infrared spectroscopy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This technology reads the near-infrared temperature readings from the brain, which makes it much safer than similar brain-interface methods. More accurately, the technology can read the increase in blood oxygen levels in various parts of the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team at the University of Western Ontario included the time-resolved fNIRS detection method (TR-fNIRS) in its brain-computer interface. This technology works with photons, which stimulate a screen to light up. As a result of that, the TR-fNIRS can make a 3D map of the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More accurately, the computer can detect the timing of the photon\u2019s arrival. Those that arrive later come from deeper regions of the brain, while those that arrive sooner are from the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team trained its brain-computer interface system on healthy and conscious individuals. Before starting the testing, the researchers told the subjects to think of playing tennis as a \u201cyes\u201d answer, and being relaxed as a \u201cno\u201d answer.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What they found is that an increase in oxyhemoglobin and decrease in deoxyhemoglobin when the subjects answered with \u201cyes,\u201d since those things naturally happen when someone has a physical activity. <\/strong>On the other hand, \u201cNo\u201d answers didn\u2019t make any changes to the levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, this new BCI technology still isn\u2019t ready for prime time. The scientists say that more research is needed since the technology might sometimes evoke wrong interpretations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Image by Gerd Altmann<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/em> One of the saddest things with having a family member unconscious is the inability to talk or communicate in any meaningful way. Moreover, these patients can\u2019t express any decision, and it\u2019s often left on the family to decide if they live or not. Fortunately, a new brain-computer interface (BCI) technology will soon change that. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[1337,1339,1338],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3692"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3699,"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692\/revisions\/3699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.despatch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Source: SYFY<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"