Paralyzed man piloted virtual drone using only his thoughts

A man with paralysis was able to control a virtual drone using only his thoughts.

The feat was made possible by a brain-computer interface (BCI) that deciphered a person’s brain activity in real time, the journal Nature reported this week. Neural signals were associated with finger movements that allowed control of a virtual drone.

“There are many things that we enjoy or do that involve multiple separate finger movements, such as writing, sewing, playing a musical instrument,” said study co-author Matthew Willsey, a neurosurgeon at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “That’s what this line of work focuses on: how we can control multiple things at once.”

Willsey added that the experiment could have been done using a real drone, but for simplicity and safety, the team decided to use a virtual one.

A 69-year-old man who took part in the study told researchers that controlling a virtual object was similar to playing a musical instrument, saying: “Flying [el dron virtual] These are small subtleties outside the midline, a little above, a little below.

The man’s BCI was installed by Blackrock Neurotech and implanted in the area of ​​the brain that controls arm movement.

An artificial intelligence model was used to match the neural signals received by the BCI electrodes with a person’s thoughts, New Scientist explained. First, the participant learned to imagine some of his fingers moving in a way that created electrical signals of varying strengths, which then allowed him to control a virtual drone through an obstacle course.

Wilsey said that for the participant, the challenge was the realization of “a dream that he thought he had missed when he got injured. He had a passion and a dream: to fly. “He seemed very empowered and capable: he asked us to take videos and send them to my friends.”

BCI technology has made significant strides in recent years thanks to companies such as Neuralink Elon Musk They are also developing a device that is currently being tested in humans.

Once fully developed, many exciting applications could provide significant freedom and independence to people with paralysis.

These include allowing people with severe paralysis or locked-in syndrome to communicate by translating neural activity into text or speech simply through their thoughts. It could also allow people to use computers, play games, operate wheelchairs and robotic prosthetics, and even do things like grab objects or scratch their faces.

However, challenges remain with the technology, including medical risks associated with the surgery required to implant a BCI device.

It also requires a high level of concentration from the person using the device, as current BCIs only correctly recognize mental commands about 80% of the time, and up to 30% of users cannot get it to work at all. The health and psychological effects of this technology, including cognitive fatigue and long-term exposure to electromagnetic fields, are not yet fully understood.

These and other issues highlight the need for further research and development to improve BCI technology, address security concerns, and create an appropriate regulatory framework.