News.blog: MIT's brain-to-machine aid

Scientists are making progress on neural devices that can translate the thoughts of a paralysed person into driving action for a prosthetic device.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said on Wednesday that they've developed an algorithm for a neural prosthetic aid that can link an individual's brain activity to the person's intentions and then translate that intention into movement.

Of course, other scientists have already done that, and built prototypes for neural brain-to-machine devices that can work for animals or humans. But each team has taken a different approach to the problem, such as developing algorithms for measuring activity in a specific brain region, or measuring them through EEGs vs optical imaging.

MIT said that it has developed a unified algorithm that can work within the parameters of these different approaches. Lakshminarayan 'Ram' Srinivasan, lead author of a paper on the subject, said MIT's new graphical models are applicable no matter what measurement technique is used.

"We don't need to reinvent a new paradigm for each modality or brain region," he said in a statement.

Still, he said, the algorithm isn't perfect, nor the final solution to solving what is a difficult problem. "Translating an algorithm into a fully functioning clinical device will require a great deal of work, but also represents an intriguing road of scientific and engineering development for the years to come," according to MIT.

MIT will publish a paper on the subject in the October edition of the Journal of Neurophysiology.