IBrain – Ramanisblog

A gadget to translate thoughts — iBrain-Translates thoughts

Wonderful attempt that would hep the Speech impaired and those affected by Neurological Conditions that affect articulation of thoughts.

The Principle behind this concept is that all thoughts are waves and they are transmitted through Neurons to effect activity.

Given the correct wave length, one can catch the signals emitted by the brain and convert them into the other mode of activity.

All things in the Universe are made of waves and there is only a degree of difference.

And this determines which of our senses respond.

While Human eyes respond to wave lengths of a particular frequency, ears do so at another.

Extending this Logic, if we can interpolate these waves and tune in our senses accordingly, one might see,hear,touch by any of our senses.

This theory is postulated in Mimamsa System of Indian Philosophy and Advaita states that every thing in the Universe is One Reality and it appears to be different because of sensory perception.

If one is able to tune in to the Reality, Dualism disappears and one is restored to the original State of Being.

More relevant to the gadget is my apprehension that whether the intrusion of the waves by the Gadget will affect the Brain.

Also whether the thoughts will be captured at the Concept level and be succeeded by thought-there is modification at this level.

Another interesting feature is that thought do not exist as pure Thoughts and are influenced/shaped by emotions.

Will this also be noticed by th iBrain?

Refers to:

‘

Called the iBrain, this simple-looking contraption is part of an experiment that aims to allow Dr. Hawking — long paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease — to communicate by merely thinking.

The iBrain is part of a new generation of portable neural devices and algorithms intended to monitor and diagnose conditions like sleep apnea, depression and autism. Invented by a team led by Philip Low, a 32-year-old neuroscientist who is chief executive ofNeuroVigil, a company based in San Diego, the iBrain is gaining attention as a possible alternative to expensive sleep labs that use rubber and plastic caps riddled with dozens of electrodes and usually require a patient to stay overnight.

“The iBrain can collect data in real time in a person’s own bed, or when they’re watching TV, or doing just about anything,” Dr. Low said.

The device uses a single channel to pick up waves of electrical brain signals, which change with different activities and thoughts, or with the pathologies that accompany brain disorders.

But the raw waves are hard to read because they must pass through the many folds of the brain and then the skull, so they are interpreted with an algorithm that Dr. Low first created for his Ph.D., earned in 2007 at the University of California, San Diego. (Theoriginal research, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was done on zebra finches.)

About the Hawking experiment, he said, “The idea is to see if Stephen can use his mind to create a consistent and repeatable pattern that a computer can translate into, say, a word or letter or a command for a computer.”

The researchers traveled to Dr. Hawking’s offices in Cambridge, England, fitted him with the iBrain headband and asked him “to imagine that he was scrunching his right hand into a ball,” Dr. Low said. “Of course, he can’t actually move his hand, but the motor cortex in his brain can still issue the command and generate electrical waves in his brain.”

The algorithm, called Spears, was able to discern Dr. Hawking’s thoughts as signals, which were represented as a series of spikes on a grid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/ibrain-a-device-that-can-read-thoughts.html