TORONTO, Feb. 11, 2009 – A team of researchers at Bloorview Kids
Rehab, Canada’s largest children’s rehabilitation hospital, has
used optical brain imaging to develop a technique for decoding
the preferences of those who cannot speak or move. The purpose
of the method is to determine the choice of disabled children,
with the goal of ultimately opening the world of options. By
measuring the intensity of near-IR light absorbed in brain
tissue, Bloorview scientists have demonstrated with 80 percent
accuracy a person’s preference for one of two drinks. “This is
the first system that decodes preference naturally from
spontaneous thoughts,” says Sheena Luu, the University of
Toronto biomedical engineering student who led the study under
the supervision of Tom Chau, who is chairman of pediatric
rehabilitation engineering for Canada Research. Most brain-
computer interfaces designed to read thoughts require training.
For example, to indicate yes to a question, the person needs to
perform an unrelated mental task – suc