June 21, 2012 Interfaces between the brain and a computer could
be the key to a more independent life for patients with severe
paralysis: Devices that transform the mere thought of a movement
into a command for a robotic arm or a cursor on a screen.
Scientists from the University of Freiburg and Imperial College
London now utilized the brain activity associated with an arm
movement recorded from the surface of the brain to steer a
cursor in real-time. Tomislav Milekovic and his colleagues
report these findings in the latest edition of the Journal of
Neural Engineering. Surprisingly for the scientists, electrodes
covering an area of only two square centimetres were sufficient
to decode the movement signal. As a result, brain-machine
interfaces could be implemented with small, easily implantable
electrode arrangements. The current study describes the decoding
of two movement directions. For the authors, the next step is to
use finer electrodes and a longer training period to decipher
movements in any direction