2/25/12 Notion in Motion: Wireless Sensors Monitor Brain Waves on the Fly: Scientific American

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Features | Technology Like !"#$"%&$%&'"#$"%(&)$*+,+--&.+%-"*- '"%$#"*&/*0$%&)01+-&"%+&3,4 $1-3.64-<3-DE714867DE2+;A-9+.4+6-F;:6-+7+D-6A4<+.4+A:.+A.:11+/E:1-+7 34@D;.-6+.6730-9+.E-+=67:

(E76- $@7:1 H6:<. 64004.(!"#$%&#'#"()*$+#",% A fighter pilot heads back to base after a long mission, feeling spent. A warning light flashes on the control panel. Has she noticed? If so, is she focused enough to fix the problem? + Thanks to current advances in electroencephalographic (EEG) brain-wave detection technology, military commanders may not have to guess the answers to these questions much longer. They could soon be monitoring her mental state via helmet sensors, looking for signs she is concentrating on her flying and reacting to the warning light.

!"#$%&#'#"()*$+#",%(-$./0$&&$+ This is possible because of two key advances ,-.+/--012+345-678-+9-1:5-6-9+.4+24;6+:<=4>? made EEG technology wireless and mobile, "TIP OF THE ICEBERG": NeuroSky, Inc.'s $<.-6+24;6+-@7:1+7996-AA Sign Up Now says Scott Makeig, director of the brain-computer interface shown here just scratches University of California, San Diego's Swartz the surface of what is possible thanks to advances in mobile electroencephalographic brain-wave Center for Computational Neuroscience detection technology, says University of California, 1,&$/&(2$,30#%$/ San Diego's Scott Makeig. (SCCN) in La Jolla, Calif. EEG used to !"#$ in Pictures: %&'()*+,-+.(#'/01*2 Image: Courtesy of Neurosky, Inc. require users to sit motionless, weighted Scientific American Mind | 1 hour ago down by heavy wires. Movement interfered Should Global-Warming Activists Lie to Defend with the signals, so that even an eyebrow twitch could garble the brain impulses. Their Cause? Cross-Check | 19 hours ago

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wireless-brain-wave-monitor 1/4 2/25/12 Notion in Motion: Wireless Sensors Monitor Brain Waves on the Fly: Scientific American Modern technology lightened the load and wirelessly linked the sensors and the Climate Models Spell Hard Times for Tropical computers that collect the data. In addition, Makeig and others developed better Farmers algorithms—in particular, independent component analysis. By reading signals from Climatewire | 20 hours ago | 6 several electrodes, they can infer where, within the skull, a particular impulse !"#$%&#'(%)*+, originated. This is akin to listening to a single speaker's voice in a crowded room. In so doing, they are also able to filter out movements—not just eyebrow twitches, but !"#$%&#'(%-#..*/(*, also the muscle flexing needed to walk, talk or fly a plane. 0+(*'(%1#'('%23%!4%5,6(#7' EEG's most public face may be two –inspired toys, Mattel's Mindflex and #SciAmBlogs Friday - surveillance drones, Uncle Milton's Force Trainer. Introduced in 2009, they let wannabe Jedi knights vaginal pH, lying to catch the liars, walking in the practice telekinesis while wearing an EEG headset. But these toys are just the "tip of city, floral clock, and more. (&!++ The Network Central | 11 hours ago 3600 the iceberg," says Makeig, whose work includes mental concentration monitoring.

"Did you push the red button and then say, 'Oops!' to yourself? It would be useful in Carolus Linnaeus's Floral Clocks many situations—including military—for the system to be aware of that." (&!++ A Blog Around The Clock | Feb 24, 2012 700

#SciAmBlogs Thursday - ADHD, dingo tools, That kind of "mental gas gauge" is just one of many projects Makeig is running at the addiction app, taste of fear, Ice Age plants, SCCN, which is part of U.C. San Diego's Institute for Neural Computation (INC). He mimic fly, and more... (&!++ The Network Central | Feb 24, 2012 3600 also combines mobile EEG with motion-capture technology, suiting volunteers in EEG caps and LED-speckled spandex suits so he can follow their movements with Enter the Science in Action Award at Google cameras in a converted basement classroom. For the first time, researchers like Science Fair (&!++ @ScientificAmerican | Feb 23, 2012 600 Makeig can examine the thoughts that lead to movement, in both healthy people and participants with conditions such as autism. Makeig calls the system Mobile Clock Classics: It All Started with the Plants Brain/Body Imaging, or MoBI. It allows him to study actions "at the speed of (&!++ A Blog Around The Clock | Feb 23, 2012 700 thought itself," he says. !"#$%0+(*'(%87#.%!4%9:#;%<*($#7=

EEG does not directly read thoughts. Instead, it picks up on the electrical fields generated by nerves, which communicate via electricity. The EEG sensors—from the one on the Star Wars games to the 256 in Makeig's MoBI—are like microphones listening to those microvolt-strength neural signals, says Tansy Brook, head of ,$(-.(/01.2/.3.45//.6778/.94.(:6/0;646:.!2/56:30.<6;= 09.9>?6@3;690.;9.:90;608/.;=/.78>7:56A;690B.'4.'.?6C/.6;D.' communications for NeuroSky Brain–Computer Interface Technology in San Jose, <6??.>/.>6??/1.495.;=/.90/EF/35.78>7:56A;690B Calif., makers of the chip in the Star Wars toys and many other research, educational

and entertainment products. $236?.!115/77

For one project, Makeig is collaborating with neuroscientists Marissa Westerfield *32/ Continue and Jeanne Townsend*, U.C. San Diego researchers studying movement behavior in teenagers with autism. They put the teens, wearing the EEG sensors and LEDs, in Makeig's special classroom. Then, they project a spaceship on the walls. The kids !"#$%&'($)$*& have to chase the spaceship as it darts from one point to another. Although the results are not yet in, Westerfield suspects that people with autism, compared with those who are non-autistic, will take longer to process where the spaceship has gone and readjust their movements toward it. "If we had a better idea of the underlying deficits…then we could possibly design better interventions," such as targeted physical therapy for the movement problems autistic people have, Westerfield says. !>6*/>*%?#2'%#8%("*%@**=

Neuroscientists and psychologists have been using EEG to eavesdrop on brain waves 1#'(,#>(#7+:%A*::#$ since 1926, and doctors employ it to study sleep patterns and observe epileptic G06H/576;F.94.)6:[email protected].!00.!5>95

seizures. During most of that time, subjects had to sit in an electrically shielded 1"B%!(C,*/(%#/%1"#(#*:*>(7#>"*.6'(73%+/,%DE7+3

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wireless-brain-wave-monitor 2/4 2/25/12 Notion in Motion: Wireless Sensors Monitor Brain Waves on the Fly: Scientific American booth, "like a big refrigerator," says John Foxe, a neuroscientist at Albert Einstein 23'%#"+(%+34 $2:0>/(?<--/@363;0A/B0C,;0.,;<3-/D,;/)0.3;<0A- College of Medicine in New York City. He calls Makeig's MoBI "technical wizardry" (E<34E3/046/&3EF4,A,GH that will enable scientists "to watch the brain and how it works in much more !(($(#56#7)!((+%$5#')+")8,&&)9"+:'((+" realistic settings." I4

;56%'")24(#'<(7)2'6$+")2%$'6#$(# Wireless EEG has already had an impact on gaming. San Francisco–based Emotiv (0G3/L<,43.?,;M- has since 2009 sold its EPOC EEG headset, which uses electrical signals to =>$#+"$5&)!(($(#56# determine a player's emotional state—excitement, frustration and boredom each N+/)36

Wireless EEG technology provides signals as clear as the wired version, Makeig says, and at about 3.5 kilograms his machinery is "luggable." (Emotiv's and NeuroSky's headsets, which use fewer electrodes, are lighter.) "Of course, we're not starting with ballet dancers doing The Rite of Spring," he admits, but the team has succeeded with joggers on a treadmill. One challenge they would still like to overcome is to remove the sticky, conductive gel that goes under each electrode. It can certainly be done— Emotiv's electrodes use only saltwater and NeuroSky's are dry.

Tzyy-Ping Jung, associate director of the SCCN, predicts the group will make a dry, 64-electrode system within a couple of years. He and Makeig envision the headset will help paralyzed people interact with the world, warn migraine sufferers of an impending headache, and adjust computerized learning to match a student's personal pace, among other potential applications.

"It's certainly something that everyone can have at home," Emotiv's Mackellar says.

*Correction (1/27/12): This sentence was edited after posting. It originally referred to Jeanne Townsend as Jean Thompson.

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No Implants CES Notebook: Of Fast Brake: Something in the Cranial What Are We Needed: IBM Demos, and Drivers' Brain Way You Move: Computing: Thinking When Movement- Vests that Hit Waves Show Cameras May Practical Brain-to- We (Try to) Solve

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wireless-brain-wave-monitor 3/4 2/25/12 Notion in Motion: Wireless Sensors Monitor Brain Waves on the Fly: Scientific American

Generating Brain Back Intent to Stop Soon Recognize Cyber Interfaces Problems? Waves Detected Before the Act Criminals by Closer to Reality and Decoded Their Gait Outside the Head [Video]

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