Thought-activated computing

Thought-activated computing: By Sam Witt and Sean Durkin. The cyberpunk vision of a brain/computer interface becomes real -- as a boon for the paralyzed.

By Sam Witt And Sean Durkin

Nov 23, 1998 | Up until a few months ago, J.R. -- a 53-year-old Georgia man who suffered a cerebral hemorrhage last year -- communicated through a primitive system involving blinks and an oversized alphabet. Now, simply by thinking about moving his finger like a phantom digit, he's able to manipulate icons on a computer screen.

J.R. is the subject of a radical new procedure that Dr. Phillip Kennedy has developed to give a voice to victims of stroke and other paralyzing disorders. It has enabled J.R. to communicate simple thoughts directly into a computer.

"The analogy I often use is that of an orchestra," says Kennedy about his patient. "All the players are playing along happily and then -- boom! -- they don't hear themselves, they don't see their conductor and they just descend into chaos."

"What we've done is take a few players of the orchestra," Kennedy says, "and get them listening to what they're doing."

In J.R.'s case, the conductor is a simple yet revolutionary device implanted in his brain.

"It's an electrode and a couple of wires that come together in a glass container," says Kennedy about the device, which is designed to stay in for a lifetime. "The container has trophic factors in it. These induce growth into the tip, so the brain tissue grows in there, and the wires record across the tissue. And we transmit those signals out across the skin with another transmitter, pick them up, amplify them, run them through a computer. We use that to then feed back to the patient, so the patients can hear the signals, and hear the firing of their own brain."

J.R.'s amplified brain impulses are sent to a computer through an antenna on his forehead. The cursor on the screen will only move if J.R. increases the firing rate by concentrating.

"Some people have called it a spinal cord bypass," says Kennedy.

Kennedy has a 25-year research background; 12 of those years have been spent working on this project. He began experimenting with brain amplification in monkeys and rats at Northwestern University. Several years later he decided to combine his interest in cerebral recording with neural regeneration. In fall 1996, the Food and Drug Administration granted permission to move forward with the procedure on human patients. J.R. is only the second human patient the doctor has worked with.

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