In, Out, and About the Brain
This post looks at research in both invasive and non invasive methods for detecting what is going on inside our brains. It examines developments in speech reconstruction, health monitoring , silk brain implants, and capturing the visions of your imagination.
Electrodes were implanted surgically into a subjectâs brain to simulate and then understand computer generated speech usually by counting from one to ten. With the help of computational neural networks, simple words were reconstructed that were 75 percent accurate  just through the pattern of neurons firing. This is a very complex procedure, as information had to pass between layers of chips and human brain tissue to infer and reconstruct the sounds. The authors stated â Reconstructing speech from the human auditory cortex creates the possibility of a speech neuroprosthetic to establish a direct communication with the brain.â
Various layering between implant, brain tissue and computation to infer speech
What was so cool about this experiment is it is accompanied by a neuroacoustic library of code and recordings using ielectroencephalography (EEG), electrocorticography (ECoG) and magnetoecnephalography (MEG).
If you click this link, or this one, you can actually hear squeaky weird reconstructed counting of one to nine, or synthesized human speech created by neurons firing in the brain through specific patterns.
In 2016 in an experiment with direct brain implantation at the University of Pittsburg, scientists put sensors in a mind-controlled robotic arm producing the sensation of touch in a paralyzed man. This let him experience subtle pressure in his own fingertips when the artificial ones were touched.
University of Pittsburgh researcher Robert Gaunt prepares Nathan Copeland for research testing.TIMOTHY BETLER/UPMC/PITT HEALTH SCIENCES VIA AP
Nathan Copeland had a broken spinal chord, so small chips were implanted in his brain to relay electrical signals that produce movement. Sensors were packed inside the prosthetics, then electrodes were implanted in Copelandâs brain at the site that controls haptic sensation. Electrically stimulating those cells worked even a decade after his accident, meaning the cells were still partially viable.Â
Instead of clunky electrodes and wires, thin silk, meaning all the way down to 2.5 micrometers (0.00025cm) has been developed. This means, as people in the fashion world say, that thinner is indeed better.
 How silk electrodes are implanted onto the brain
Since the brain is basically wet anyway, if saline water is put on top of the implant the silk dissolves, leaving the electrodes exposed and stable, even on top of the curvy part of the brain. The silk breaks down easily, and is reabsorbed back into the body because in essence silk is a fibrous protein.Â
Silk dissolving on the brain like a pair of faded, bleached jeans.
But it can take a while to dissolve, so graphene, which dissoles more quickly, is also being tried out.
Graphene with electrodes sandwiched in between computer circuits
The most astonishing breakthroughs are continuing to occur in Mary Lou Jepsenâs OpenWater company, a company I have been tracking for a about a year and wrote about here.
Jepsenâs background is in electrical engineering and optics, and includes stints at Apple, Google, Oculus Rift and Facebook. She surmised that the medical diagnostic imaging world, dominated by fMrIs, CT Scans and PET technologies had not really been updated for decades. Using consumer electronics imagining systems and electronics, she reduce the size of an apparatus to scan the brain to about that of a thick headband.Â
With Jepsenâs background in imaging and optics, she understood that the body is translucent to red light, x-rays, and gamma rays. Out of all of these light sources, red light is the cheapest. but it scatters or diffracts quite a bit, and loses strength and focus. Her solution to this problem is to use holography to recapture the scattering of lightwaves, which can then be mathematically inverted to strengthen the signal. The wavelength of the light that is refocused is 1 micron, which means its possible to record it directly into a hologram. Using technology first developed by Texas Instruments in the 1990s that uses an ultrasonic ping, the light is subtlety changed, and two beams of the same color light make a holographic interference pattern. The hologram is then decoded with blasts of light at one million times a second with double stacked camera chips.
Japanese scientists also trying to figure out what you might be seeing in your brain when you are dreaming.
The brain and body can be scanned out voxel by voxel in different resolutions . Jepsenâs tests surpassed fMRIs, MRIs, all the way down to a few microns, which means they can focus through skull and brain to a single neuron. This means neuron states can be read and written using light alone, without using an invasive probe.
OpenWaters new camera, ultrasonic and laser chips
Currently the testing is going on with rats, but here is where it gets totally interesting. Jepsen brings the research back to Jack Gallants UC Berkeley Lab that I have written about in great depth over the years. She believes if the size can be brought down and the image and resolution brought up, we can look at images of thought. She also referenced the work done by Japanese dream researchers (see image above) to bring up those images that usually remain locked inside oneâs head. She states a five percent false negative reading, so its pretty accurate. She also mentioned focused ultrasound surgery without incision, very Star Trekky. Â
Jepsen states telepathy is within reach now, and the technologies to assist that are big data and machine learning. She actually asked âwhat if we could dump the raw images in our brains out to each other? How do we handle being able to see each otherâs thoughts and dreams?â She sees it as the âdemocratization of healthcare and telepathyâ, a very optimistic view.
Mary Lou holding a mock up of potential Open Water headband with optical devices