The latest on biofeedback, consciousness, neuroscience & neurotechnology.
Sana Inoue and Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University showed a computer screen grid of nine numbers to six chimpanzees. The chimps were previously trained to recognize the ascending nature of the numbers. They were also shown to nine college students. When subjects touched one of the numbers, all of the others vanished. They then had to touch the squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there.
When the numbers flashed for just four-tenths of a second or less, one of the chimps beat all of the college students.
Here's the press release from 'Current Biology', a publication of Cell Press:
The "Force Trainer" wasn't the only new product unveiled at CES 2009 that uses Neurosky's new EEG neurofeedback system. Even the toy mammoth Mattel has decided to test the waters with this new technology.
Mind Flex is a game featuring an obstacle course that you must use your mind to navigate a small sphere through. The headset looks slightly different than the one included with the "Force Trainer" - it has one sensor that rests against your forehead and two more that clip onto your earlobes. Apparently the sensors use only theta-wave activity to control the sphere around the course - most likely triggered only during concentration and focus. The headset is wireless and transmits signals to the game using radio frequencies.
The sphere moves around the course using a small fan activated by your brainwaves. The fan actually makes the ball appear to levitate as it navigates through a series of hoops around the mouse-trap like course.
Let's hope Mattel actually follows through with this thing into production. They plan on selling it for only $80!
The "Force Trainer" from Uncle Milton Industries will be one of the first mainstream EEG neurofeedback toys on the market. This revolutionary new game monitors brainwave activity and allows you to control a small ball that moves through a 10 inch training tower using focus and concentration.
Uncle Milton unveiled their new toy at CES 2009. With a fall 2009 release date, it will one of the first products using NeuroSky's neurofeedback hardware. The headset included with the toy appears to be simple and unobtrusive.
Let's hope they do it right so that more products from other manufacturers will follow. We're excited to see EEG neurofeedback being used in a toy. Expect some serious innovaction as more people become aware of EEG and this technology hits mainstream.
We'll keep you updated with any new information about this and other new products using similar technologies.
A theory of alpha/theta neurofeedback, creative performance
enhancement, long distance functional connectivity and
psychological integration.
Gruzelier J. Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London,
Lewisham Way, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW, UK,
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Professionally significant enhancement of music and dance
performance and mood has followed training with an
EEG-neurofeedback protocol which increases the ratio of theta to
alpha waves using auditory feedback with eyes closed. While
originally the protocol was designed to induce hypnogogia, a state
historically associated with creativity, the outcome was
psychological integration, while subsequent applications focusing
on raising the theta-alpha ratio, reduced depression and anxiety in
alcoholism and resolved post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). In
optimal performance studies we confirmed associations with
creativity in musical performance, but effects also included
technique and communication. We extended efficacy to dance and
social anxiety. Diversity of outcome has a counterpart in wide
ranging associations between theta oscillations and behaviour in
cognitive and affective neuroscience: in animals with sensory-motor
activity in exploration, effort, working memory, learning,
retention and REM sleep; in man with meditative concentration,
reduced anxiety and sympathetic autonomic activation, as well as
task demands in virtual spatial navigation, focussed and sustained
attention, working and recognition memory, and having implications
for synaptic plasticity and long term potentiation. Neuroanatomical
circuitry involves the ascending mescencephalic-cortical arousal
system, and limbic circuits subserving cognitive as well as
affective/motivational functions. Working memory and meditative
bliss, representing cognitive and affective domains, respectively,
involve coupling between frontal and posterior cortices, exemplify
a role for theta and alpha waves in mediating the interaction
between distal and widely distributed connections. It is posited
that this mediation in part underpins the integrational attributes
of alpha-theta training in optimal performance and psychotherapy,
creative associations in hypnogogia, and enhancement of technical,
communication and artistic domains of performance in the arts.
Release Date: Summer 2009 Number of Electrodes: 16 Electrode Type: Pure Neural Signals / EEG Movements: Head Rotation through two-axis gyros Estimated Cost: $299 SDK Available? YES
The ThinkGear from NeuroSky
Release Date: Will be released OEM only from 3rd party software/game developers Number of Electrodes: 1 Electrode Type: Pure Neural Signals / EEG Movements: Estimated Cost: Available only to companies developing games or software. SDK Available? YES
The NIA from OCZ
Release Date: May 2008 Number of Electrodes: 3 (Front) Electrode Type: Uses Biopotentials from forehead. Mixture of muscle, skin & nerve activity (sympathetic and parasympathetic) Movements: Multiple mapped profiles Estimated Cost: $160 SDK Available? NO
The release of the much anticipated Emotiv Systems Epoc is delayed until next year, according to Big Download. They were told by a Emotiv PR representative that the device is being delayed so that it works as planned when released.
Mind-controlled Nintendo Wii 2.0 set to rock Mario's console galaxy?
The Nintendo Wii may have revolutionised gaming but we wouldn't bet against it further upping-the-ante, should a mind-controlled Wii 2.0 ever grace our living rooms.
Our awesome artist's impressions, part of the future tech feature in the new issue of T3 Magazine, showcase a Wii headset accessory that uses brainwaves to control characters and also feature immersive in-ear headphones. Sweet.
We've also imagined a streamlined Wii Remote with just the one button. You point and press, your frontal lobes do the rest.
Brain-wave technology is already becoming a reality with Emotiv pioneering in-game systems, but our crystal ball of gadge is advising us to stick a few quid on Nintendo knocking-out the first mind-controlled console on the market.
Hopefully we'll have more info on this soon. Some more images:
Hey you. Yeah, you, listen in close; we've seen the future here at CeBIT. If you thought that the idea of controlling your gaming rig with only your mind was just a bit too Tomorrowland, then you haven't laid eyes on the "brain-computer interface" developed by Austria's Guger Tecnologies (g.tec).
We're happy to report that in a game of thought-control vs. Engadget man-editor, we were totally pwned at Pong. 10-to-4 if you must know. Our competition sat smug in his stool thinking about where he wanted his paddle to go, as we flailed about helpless with mouse and keyboard in a wake of alpha waves. At least we didn't have to smear gel on our scalp and wear a funny hat -- ha! The system works by cleverly measuring fluctuations in electrical voltage in the brain and then translating them into computer commands. The technology has already been commercialized into the size of an iPAQ Pocket PC for hospitals and research institutes. It costs about $5,000 with a 99 - 100% level of accuracy for "trained subjects." We had our hat handed to us by a person who just started using the system, yesterday. Hell, that's a shorter learning curve than Graffiti.
Although the technology shows great promise in controlling prosthetics and assisting the disabled with communications, we found ourselves (and our new best scientist friends, Christoph Guger and Ingo Niedermayer) eagerly discussing its use as a Second Life controller and of course, in robotics. Be sure to click the read link below for all the details; check the gallery for the gore.
I just wanted to drop a big note
apologizing for the lack of updates to the blog - I have a lot of
catching up to do. We were busy moving into our new office and
finishing construction. I'll try to post any news that we may have
missed during the past two weeks.
NextFest is Wired Magazine's four-day festival of innovative products and technologies. We blogged about MindBall last year, which is the commercialized version of Brainball. BrainBall is a game created by Interactive Institute. Players of the game have EEG sensors connected to their forehead with a strap. The electrodes in the strap read the players' brainwaves.
Brainball is a game that goes against the conventional competitive concept, and also reinvents the relationship between man and machine. Instead of activity and adrenalin, it is passivity and calmness that mark the truly successful Brainball player. Brainball is unique amongst machines since it is not controlled by the player's rational and strategic thoughts and decisions. On the contrary, the participants are dependent on the body's own intuitive reactions to the game machine.
At first glance, Brainball seems similar to a traditional two player game - two people challenge one and other and take their respective positions at each end of a table that is laid out with two goals and a little ball. The rest of the game's equipment is more special. Both players wear a strap around their forehead that contains electrodes and is wired up to a biosensor system. This system, that is used to measure the body's biological signals, is tightly fastened to the frontal lobes and registers the electrical activity in the brain - so called EEG (electroencephalogram). The players brain activity is graphed in a diagram on a computer screen so that the public can easily follow the players mental processes during the match.
Here's a picture of Buzz Aldrin beating Wired Magazine publisher Jay Lauf in a BrainBall match.
.."BrainPaint extracts a new metric on the complexity of the EEG and feeds that back visually in a language the brain functions in. Our brains and BrainPaint are complex systems -- BrainPaint takes information communicated directly from the brain and creates real-time fractal images that the brain appears to understand."
An Image Gallery of BrainPaintings can be found here
A company called Ambient has developed a device that intercepts signals sent to the voice box from the brain via a sensor laden neck band. They claim to be able to decode these signals and match them to a pre-recorded series of words - even when the words are voiced out-loud. Theses 'words' can then be used to control things via a computer.
They are currently using this system to direct a motorized wheelchair, allowing a paralysed person to navigate without moving or speaking out-loud. Ambient is developing the technology with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to help people with neurological problems operate computers and other electronic equipment despite their problems with muscle control.
This is the first time (that I know about, anyway) that a device has been able to convert electrical impulses from the brain into actual words. This is different from traditional EEG, which measures brainwaves, as it is analyzing signals outside the brain on their way to the larynx.
Audeo is currently selling a developer kit that allows researchers to develop new applications with their technology. If this works as well as they claim, the possibilities are endless.
Check out the rest of this article for a video presentation of the device.
Nancy Leo, a senior at Arizona's Hamilton
High School, had her science fair research project selected as one
of 18 projects to be presented at the Sixth World Congress on
Stress in Austria.
Leo's study focuses on HRV (heart rate variability) and salivary
cortisol changes that occur during stressors in the laboratory
while using biofeedback. She found that an increase in stress
resulted in less heart rate variability and an increase in salivary
cortisol. She also found that the stress response could be changed
significantly with biofeedback.
Hungarian researchers are using GSR Biofeedback in a new study using video games.
Laszlo Laufer and Bottyan Nemeth from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics are using GSR Biofeedback (Galvonic Skin Response, or skin conductance) in a study where they've shown that a gamer's actions can be predicted up to two seconds before they occur.
Laufer says "There are quite a few situations in life where there would be a need to provide a support for making a good decision at a good time. I have military applications (pilots) in mind, but surely we can find others as well." He also sees it being used in video games "Another application I have in mind could be called a frustration game" This type of game could detect when a player was going to act and change gameplay to throw off the player. This type of technology could be integrated into game controlers easily.
This type of technology (GSR Biofeedback) should be used in more video games, but I'm not too sure that it would be very successful if used in a manner that would frustrate game players! It could definitely be used to help speed up a person's reaction time while playing a game.
You may have already seen this, but it is new to me. Ken Wilbur narrates a video of his own experience using neurofeedback while navigating various meditative states.
From YouTube:
'We asked Ken to do a short 10-minute commentary on these various meditative states and the corresponding brain-wave patterns that are shown on the EEG machine in the video. Ken enters four meditative states (nirvikalpa closed eyes, nirvikalpa open eyes, sahaj, and mantra-savikalpa), each of which has a very distinctive brain-wave pattern. In his commentary, Ken emphasizes that the patterns shown on this machine may or may not be typical, but they do emphasize that profound consciousness states can be evoked at will, and these show immediate correlation in brain-wave patterns.'
A company called Omneuron aims to use MR
Imaging for neurofeedback purposes, although they aren't calling
it neurofeedback.
The company is using fMRI (real-time functional magnetic resonance
imaging) to measure blood flow to different parts of the brain and
use it to teach sufferers of chronic pain, depression, addiction
and other psychological conditions to see which parts of the brain
are activated while performing different tasks.
It is essentially neurofeedback using fMRI instead of EEG.
Another company called No Lie MRI is trying to sell similar
technology to companies and agencies in the government as a
replacement to the polygraph.
A game studio called Frozen North
Productions in Canada has created an off-shoot of Tetris that
they call Biobox. Their Biofeedback version of Tetris uses pulse
rate to determine the speed of the following blocks. Like many
biofeedback games, the object is to relax while playing - and the
incentive is ease-of-play.
Here is a great video from YouTube featuring the work of Rae Tattenbaum and Susan Othmer using neurofeedback for peak performance. This shows the neurofeedback applied using the CARE model. Here is a great video from YouTube featuring the work of Rae Tattenbaum and Susan Othmer using neurofeedback for peak performance.
Living in a more connected and tech-focused world can result in
added stress, and MindBall's biofeedback system may soon become a
regular way to monitor and manage stress levels.
If you're going to win MindBall, a game designed by the
Interactive Institute, you've got to be relaxed. Two players sit
across from each other at a table wearing headbands that monitor
their brain activity. Their brainwaves control a ball on the table,
and the most relaxed player wins.
The MindPlace PreSage biofeedback system is coming soon!
The release date has been pushed forward a bit, but we're
expecting it to be available sometime in October or before.
The PreSage is a very accurate (16 bits minimum) and fast (up to 20
samples/second) system which is capable of acquiring up to four
channels of biofeedback information simultaneously. It will include
free PreSage Monitor software for PCs, which allows information to
be saved and displayed as bar graphs and line chart formats.
PreSage also includes a unique, RGB front panel display. The
PreSage will also connect to our Procyon system for Light &
Sound Biofeedback sessions. More info soon!
