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“Thoughts are free, who can guess them?” is the first line of the famous folk song by Hoffmann von Fallersleben. But for how much longer? Researchers around the world are trying to delve ever deeper into the secrets of the human brain. Neuroscientists are achieving almost unbelievable things: they are transplanting nerves, inserting pacemakers into the brain and connecting our brain with computers.
But this is just the beginning: in future, there will be many more opportunities to intervene in thinking. But what are the limits of brain surgery? Will infidelities and other secret affairs soon be a thing of the past? Will we soon be controlling machines with our thoughts? One thing is certain: sensational opportunities are emerging for medicine.
The principle of brain vision
Professor John Dylan Haynes from the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin is one of the world’s leading minds in brain research. For years, he has been working on decoding thoughts by observing the processes in the brain. Haynes knows exactly what a person is thinking before they know it themselves. He refers to this as “brain television”.
The researcher is able to determine how the nerves in the thinking organ react to certain thoughts. To do this, he measures the brains of test subjects with a magnetic resonance tomograph – in three dimensions. The reason: With every thought, different areas of the brain are activated and their activity becomes visible. For example, if the respondent sees a car the color is recognized in one area of the brain and the shape in another. Finally, the thinking apparatus compares the overall picture with the experiences made so far.
The test participants do not know why they should look at the cars. The amazing thing: Haynes and his colleagues can tell which car they find beautiful and which they find ugly even before the test subjects do.
In contact with the outside world
Brain researcher Niels Birbaumer and his colleagues at the Institute of Medical Psychology have been working for more than five years to enable severely paralyzed people to communicate again with the help of a brain-computer interface. This is because no muscle movement is required, as is the case with spoken language or keyboard operation.
Kirsten R. suffers from a degenerative disease of the motor nervous system – ALS (amytrophic lateral sclerosis) for short. She can barely move and can no longer speak. At some point, she will be in a completely immobile body live. This is because the progressive disease destroys the nerve cells responsible for controlling movement. The disease usually ends fatally after several years.
To enable the patient to communicate with her environment, she is fitted with a kind of swimming cap equipped with sensors. They measure their brain activity and transfer the data to a software program.
The human thinks, the computer writes
The system works as follows: All the letters of the alphabet are shown on a matrix. Kirsten now only has to concentrate on one letter. As soon as the correct letter lights up, the sensors register increased brain activity. The software saves the letter as recognized. Kirsten Ritter can even write complete sentences. She can express wishes again and talk to people. This technology is still only applicable to a limited extent. However, the brain researchers hope to revolutionize medicine one day.
The hand is more than just a human tool. We eat and drink with it, we touch it, we express our feelings. But what happens if we lose a hand in an accident? Researchers hope that the connection between the human brain and the computer will make life much easier for paralyzed people in the future.
High-tech arms from Austria
Researchers in Austria have succeeded in developing artificial arms that are controlled solely by the power of thought. Patients only have to imagine the movement and the prosthesis then executes it. So far, this high-tech solution has only made life easier for seven people worldwide. One of them is 20-year-old Christian Kandlbauer from Styria.
In 2005, doctors at Vienna University Hospital fought for his life. When he climbed an electricity pylon, 20,000 volts coursed through his body. Both of his arms had to be amputated due to the severe injury. An artificial neural network is now supposed to guarantee that the arms move at the same moment that Christian Kandlbauer moves them mentally. With the new prosthesis, he can make up to seven movements at the same time.
carry out the work. Conventional prostheses, on the other hand, only allow up to three movements.
Controlling computer games with thoughts
Interfaces between brain and computer also open up the possibility, PC games to revolutionize PC games. The San Francisco-based company Emotiv Systems presented a new development for game manufacturers: the “Emotiv Development Kit” – a headset combined with sensors, including sensors for measuring brain activity. This makes it possible for virtual game characters to react to the gamer’s facial expressions and state of mind. He can therefore influence the events in the computer game solely through the power of his thoughts.
