Engineers think 'out of the box' to help solve motor control issues for Parkinson's patients and others

With support from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Emerging Frontiers of Research and Innovation (EFRI) program, bioengineer Gert Cauwenberghs, of the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Institute for Neural Computation at the University of California (UC), San Diego, and his colleagues are working to understand how brain circuitry controls how we move.

The goal is to develop new technologies to help patients with Parkinson's disease and other debilitating medical conditions navigate the world on their own.

"Parkinson's disease is not just about one location in the brain that's impaired. It's the whole body. We look at the problems in a very holistic way, combine science and clinical aspects with engineering approaches for technology," explains Cauwenberghs. "We're using advanced technology, but in a means that is more proactive in helping the brain to get around some of its problems--in this case, Parkinson's disease--by working with the brain's natural plasticity, in wiring connections between neurons in different ways."

Outcomes of this research are contributing to the system-level understanding of human-machine interactions, and motor learning and control in real world environments for humans, and are leading to the development of a new generation of wireless brain and body activity sensors and adaptive prosthetics devices.

Besides advancing our knowledge of human-machine interactions and stimulating the engineering of new brain/body sensors and actuators, the work is directly influencing diverse areas in which humans are coupled with machines. These include brain-machine interfaces and telemanipulation.

The research in this episode was supported by NSF award #1137279, EFRI-M3C: Distributed Brain Dynamics in Human Motor Control. Besides Cauwenberghs, the following researchers are contributing to this research: Howard Poizner, Kenneth Kreutz-Delgado, Tzyy-Ping Jung, Scott Makeig, Terrence Sejnowski, Akinori Ueno, Mike Arnold, Frederic Broccard, Yu Mike Chi, John Iversen, Christoph Maier, Emre Neftci, David Peterson, Abraham Akinin, Srinjoy Das, Ariana Dokhanchy, Nikhil Govil, Sheng-Hsiou Hsu, Tim Mullen, Alejandro Ojeda, Bruno Pedroni, and Cory Stevenson.

In addition, Jim Campbell dedicated time and effort as a subject in helping the researchers better understand the brain dynamics of motor control in Parkinson's disease and non-invasive avenues for its remediation.

The wireless dry-contact 64-electrode electroencephalogram (EEG) headset was contributed by Cognionics. Other highlighted resources include: Source Information Flow Toolbox and BCILAB for real-time predictive modeling and visualization of brain activity from the EEG data; and the NSF Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center Motion Capture Laboratory for brain-machine-body activity mapping in immersive virtual-reality.

This coverage is by Miles O'Brien, Science Nation Correspondent
,and Marsha Walton, Producer, Science Nation, National Science Foundation, 31 March 2014. The article was published on the Horizon International Solutions Site on 2 April 2014.

Learn more About Science Nation: Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations presented in this material are only those of the presenter grantee/researcher, author, or agency employee; and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Mind-controlled quadcopter demonstrates

new possibilities for people who are paralyzed

Biomedical engineer Bin He and his team at the University of Minnesota have created a brain-computer interface with the goal of helping people with disabilities, such as paralysis, regain the ability to do everyday tasks. The researchers are testing out their system using a flying object, known as a quadcopter, and controlling it with someone's thoughts! For the experiments, the team uses both an actual flying quadcopter and a virtual one. In both experiments, the interface is non-invasive so there are no implants. Participants wear an electro-encephalography, or EEG, cap with 64 electrodes. When the participant thinks about a specific movement, neurons in his or her brain's motor cortex produce tiny electric signals, which are sent to a computer. The computer processes the signals and sends directions through a Wi-Fi system to direct the quadcopter. Credit: Science Nation, National Science Foundation

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), biomedical engineer Bin He and his team at the University of Minnesota have created a brain-computer interface with the goal of helping people with disabilities, such as paralysis, regain the ability to do everyday tasks.

Currently, the researchers are testing out their system using a flying object known as a quadcopter, and controlling it with someone's thoughts! For the experiments, the team uses both an actual flying quadcopter and a virtual one. In both experiments, the interface is non-invasive, so there are no implants. Participants wear an electro-encephalography, or EEG, cap with 64 electrodes. When the participant thinks about a specific movement, neurons in his or her brain's motor cortex produce tiny electric signals, which are sent to a computer. The computer processes the signals and sends directions through a Wi-Fi system to direct the quadcopter.

He and his team chose the quadcopter for this testing phase to keep participants engaged, but the interface is designed to help in the real world with everyday tasks, such as turning on the lights or surfing the internet.

The research in this episode was supported by NSF award #0933067, Neuroimaging of Motor Imagery for Brain Computer Interface Application, and funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Imagine living a life in which you are aware of the world around you but you're prevented from engaging in it because you are completely paralyzed. Even speaking is impossible. For an estimated 50,000 Americans this is a harsh reality. It's called locked-in syndrome, a condition in which people with normal cognitive brain activity suffer severe paralysis, often from injuries or an illness such as Lou Gehrig's disease. Locked-in people are unable to move at all except possibly their eyes, and so they're left with no means of communication but they are fully conscious. Boston University neuroscientist Frank Guenther works with the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science and Technology (CELEST), which is made up of eight private and public institutions, mostly in the Boston area. Its purpose is to synthesize the experimental modeling and technological approaches to research in order to understand how the brain learns as a whole system. In particular, Guenther's research is looking at how brain regions interact, with the hope of melding mind and machine, and ultimately making life much better for people with locked-in syndrome. "People who have no other means of communication can start to control a computer that can produce words for them or they can manipulate what happens in a robot and allow them to interact with the world," Guenther says about his research. Read the story at Science Nation video.

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Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI)

The Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) has been established as a result of strategic planning and reorganization of NSF's Engineering Directorate (ENG). EFRI serves a critical role in helping ENG focus on important emerging areas in a timely manner. Each year, EFRI will recommend, prioritize and fund interdisciplinary initiatives at the emerging frontier of engineering research and education.

Understanding the brain means knowing the fundamental principles underlying brain structure and: function. From the Fact Sheet:Understanding the brain: the National Science Foundation and the BRAIN Initiative Image from Thinkstock courtesy of the National Science Foundation

Understanding the brain: the National Science Foundation and the BRAIN Initiative

The BRAIN Initiative is an effort by federal agencies and private partners to support and coordinate research to understand how the human brain works. Understanding the brain means knowing the fundamental principles underlying brain structure and function.