>> coming up sunday morning, white house correspondent on the campaignvelopments in 2016. the white house's relationship with congress following the august recess. at -- lend will look howie lend will look at donald trump's plans for veterans. journal lifeington beginning at 7:00 eastern sunday morning. join the discussion. "the brain is called electric." the author is boston globe reporter malcolm gay. what is a bci? malcolm: it is a brain computer

interface. there are many ways of accessing the brain. they take electrodes, place it atop the brain, which follows or ne rds narrow signals -- urosignals. ferried to aion is computer, and algorithm, that takes the information and transforms it into an action command. perhaps it is moving a cursor from left to right or moving a robotic arm. it is using computer and algorithms to read and tension from the brain. .- intention from the brain >> who discovered them? malcolm: that is controversial.

people have been using electrodes in the brain for a very long time to determine various types of movement and try to understand how animals initiate movement. 1999, researchers realized they could take the recordings and could figure out, based on the rhythms of the firing patterns the cells were creating to enact certain movements, they could re-create that movement. the early work was done in mice models and the plea moved on to monkeys and humans. >> what is the practical effect of bci's? malcolm: the medical benefit? there are several. on the one hand, this is a

technology that will be extraordinarily helpful to quadriplegics, people who suffer from als disease. these are people -- if you think about it, the way the body, the way the mind interacts is really only through muscular action. if i want to communicate anything to you, i have to move muscle to do that. whether it is moving my mouth to speak or pen to write. when you lose that ability, you lose the ability to communicate with the world in a profound way. what this technology could perhaps do is give a level of freedom and autonomy to people who are quadriplegic either -- somesoftware that sort of word processing software that would allow them to speak

with people around them or even use robotic limbs to feed themselves, to do the basic daily tasks of living. that would be a huge step forward for a lot of people who are quadriplegic. other areas as well, this is something -- exciting research being used to rehabilitate victims of stroke. interfacen computer pathways. neural a lot of different medical applications. there are other applications as well. >> it sounds like medical research. is this being done by medical researchers? neuroscientists, a lot of the people i described in

"the brain electric," some of them are surgeons working with a patient group. most of it is being funded by -- much of it is being funded by the military. thepeople working with research subjects are often and they'replegics looking at this as a chance to eventually help people in a medical setting. it -- how did darpa get involved in this project? beenlm: they have for a veryin bci long time. sometimes the interest is building smarter interfaces to create a more robust military

force. this program is based on something spearheaded -- this is about trying to make whole the soldiers who are coming back who,iraq and afghanistan, because of advances in body suffering blows that previously would have been fatal but are now coming back with amputations. these are young men and women who are in their 20's and 30's who have their entire life before them. he studied the brain prior to aining darpa, and has missionary zeal. trying -- a lot of the funding coming from the

military is really geared toward upper limb prosthetics. >> tell us about jeffrey ling. --colm: he is a little bit he is a bit of a rarity. he comes from the military and studied neurology. when he joined darpa, he did two tours of duty. during those tours of duty, he recounts he started people coming back with applications. like many of the people i profile in the book, he had this moment, ament -aha soldier had come back after suffering a terrible blow.

he broke his back but his spinal cord was intact. this kid was mortified because he was going to be sent home. saying, you are going to go back a hero and you will heal up and you will be fine. you will be able to do everything you used to do. the soldier had an emotional response where he said, when i go back home, i managed a fast food restaurant. here i am helping people in this process for democracy. that asback convinced the head of this program, he and the u.s. owed it to these people to make them whole. who elsewho else -- >> is working on this brain computer interface? malcolm: most people i profile

in the book have worked with darpa. many people work with darpa or the department of defense. there are several different funding sources. darpa -- the department of defense is providing a lot of money at this point. there is a lot of interest in this in the private sector as well. headset youf eeg can purchase to modulate your brain waves, to better relax, or to better concentrate, things like that. there is some private investment going on. some of the research is being funded by universities. other branches of government. it is having a broad funding source. at this point, and with the

people i profile in the book, a lot of the funding has come from darpa. >> what is the macro number? malcolm: i would say in excess of $75 million. obama put out the $100 million for the brain initiative. >> is there a market for this type of technology? rub.lm: there in lies the one of the real difficulties that people come up with, and i account one of the more dramatic episodes in the book, the research for this is really exciting and the demonstrations are really exciting. when you see somebody move a robotic limb or manipulate a computer mentally, it is an exciting demonstration.

the market economics these people run into again and again, however, as wonderful of an idea as it is to provide upper limb aesthetics, these are really small demographics. quadriplegics have a fairly short life expectancy. most people who are amputees are amputees due to some sort of vascular disease. they have lost a person of a lower limb. the problem people run into again and again, we can have this demonstration and we can have this work in a lab, but taking it to the next step, dragging it over the hurdle into the commercial market becomes really difficult. tois a difficult proposition

get investors interested because they see how much research and development will have to go into this project and they realize the return on their investment is likely going to be fairly small. that is one of the traditional problems that has kept people broader product. one of the areas a lot of the researchers are looking at when they think about privatizing their research and creating a company is the stroke market because stroke is a very large pool of people. -- of a sudden, it becomes you can create -- their idea is you can create products that will give investors a good return. bcit of interest in using for rehabilitative purposes for stroke victims.

>> what kind of progress has been made in the last 15 years? malcolm: let's see. it started out with rats moving a lever up and down. the latest and greatest, andrew schwartz from the university of to endow ones able of his research subjects with 10 degrees of freedom in an upper limb. to research subject was able feed herself chocolate. at one point, she beat me in a scissors.ck, paper, other people are working with creating digital vision so

implants that would go into the retina, some people are working euraldirect n interfaces. implants that would allow previously blind people to have something to approximate vision. people are working with memory, trying to create, craft a bci that would allow alzheimer's patients or people that suffer dementia to form new memories. hand, we are a long way from creating a world where these advanced bci's are available to the public. on the other hand, we have come light years. malcolm: what is the role that -- >> what has the role that jennifer aniston has played in this technology? malcolm: she is an unlikely

star. research in the 1990's that found -- one of the neurosurgical techniques that is where the patient is awake during neurosurgery. surgeon at ucla found that when he showed his neurosurgery patients images of jennifer aniston, there would be one neuron that would fire. it would fire incredibly rapidly. shirten he would show a of halle berry or kobe bryant or some other celebrity and the new

ron would be completely -- ne uron would be completely silent. people have taken this in many respects. is this the neuron responsible say,- i should back up and there were other neurons found that fired in similar manners to other people. specifically or kobe bryant specifically. responsibleneuron for my ability to recognize jennifer aniston? that has lots of problems. the minute you say the one neuron responsible for it, if that neuron goes away, you would not be able to recognize jennifer aniston.

many other researchers have come to believe that it is more of a network, a series of beacons. as you are coming to understand an individual or information is coming in through a visual stream, these neurons are responding to specific forms in the face or shades of brown or shades of blue, and as each one of these neurons creates this beacon of understanding and comprehension, if each one of those beacons lights up, and it is jennifer aniston, the final begin will light up. it is an indicator that all of these previous steps have been reached. cognitive neuroscience.

researchersd bci's, are starting to think about how the brain is thinking about the world symbolically and how the and how seeing objects it is going to interact with those objects. that has much more to do with this networked notion of the brain understanding individual objects and its relation to those objects. >> what is some of the technology being used to develop the bci concept? hand, some the one of it is off-the-shelf. labs are computers -- most are making their own computers. it starts with electrodes and

cables. the electrodes are implanted in the brain. -- actually,es electrode grids. electrodes are side of the next to various -- sidled up next to various neurons. signals come off the brain, they have to be digitized to get them into the computers and amplified. there are algorithms the various labs will make and those labs -- those algorithms will send what ever the product of the algorithm is to an output

device. often times, that is a simple videogame. a target in the center and you are meant to move a cursor to a second target higher up. those are fairly simple video games crafted in the lab. when you get into the robotic arms that have been -- those efforten created by this from darpa. many of those technologies simply did not exist before this motorsand these are tiny in various hydraulic systems to move the arm. too cool the arm -- to cool the arm, things like that.

darpa created two arms. one is built out of existing technologies and the other will allow sensory information to be brought back into the brain. it is equipped with that as well. on the one hand, some real garden-variety technology there. on the other, the bleeding of the cutting edge. what is the utah array? malcolm: it is about the size small pill.ck or a it looks like a bed of nails. placed in the brain itself.

researchers have been using individual electrodes. this gave them a consistent pattern. it was something that can move ish the brain and the brain almost like the consistency of a flan. move -- if the brain starts to shift slightly, -- it gives you a certain amount of consistency of the interface. there are lots of other arrays being developed in labs right now. some researchers are working on cubs of electrodes --

es of electrodes. >> you tell jan sherman story. tell us about jan sherman. the thought process to make movement? .alcolm: jan is extraordinary late 1990's, she was living in california and she ran a company where she would hold these murder mystery parties. during one of the parties, she was crouching down and realized she could not stand up. her legs were not obeying her. this is the beginning of the rapid decline of her motor function. within three years, she was in a wheelchair. she had two children at the time

and was living in california and would go to various doctors to try to diagnose what the problem was. each of the doctors said this looks like multiple sclerosis. it is not multiple sclerosis. it turned out she had spinal cerebellar degeneration. it is very rare. she has lost all movement below the neck. jan in a years, placed tremendous depression. i went and, she was suicidal -- at one point, she was suicidal. she was raised catholic and sense ofd a strong charity and duty.

she had tremendous amounts of guilt in terms of the burden she was on other people and her inability to help other people. to the point where she did become suicidal. jan, when she learned about this research, she was very quick to undergo -- very quick to sign up for it and start working with the university of pittsburgh. she this has done for her, is quite clear that she is never going to really benefit from this herself. the technology is simply too young. receivedess, she has extraordinary spiritual

comfort from this. it has given new meaning to her life and she knows she is helping people in the future that may suffer a similar disease. that has given her a new sense of purpose and meaning. of the that is one really interesting things about jan. and a lot of people that participate in this research. it is not so much they think they will benefit. in thismething they do very brave and courageous effort to help other people. >> at the same time, she has manipulated a mechanical arm several times via her thought processes. malcolm: that's right. the upside is that she does gets to play -- get to play with some cool technology.

simulated f 30. there are two separate ways people will craft the bci and motion.o unlock one is to think about unrelated thoughts. a cursor to move from the left to the right, i might think about flexing my elbow. up and down, flexing my fist. recognizable neural patterns. that is a good way to create an interface quickly. you cannot really have spontaneous movement and explore the environment the way we would with our biological -- and the other way is to not think about

it in those terms but to think about it naturalistic way. -- naturalistically. think about moving the arm up. quadriplegic,e the brain is plastic and the , which is highly influential in motor action, often times those neurons will be greek rooted -- will be recruited for other activities. even though they are motor impaired, when they think about moving their arm or clinching their fist, the motor cortex will spring into action as though they were intact bodily. >> where is the future of this technology going? malcolm: good question.

the future of this technology will start in the medical field, in the rehabilitative realm of stroke. from there, that is a good possibility to create, good opportunity to create and show it has a medical benefit. once that medical benefit has been shown, i think other bci's will have a much easier time of getting investors on board. the foothold of stroke and some of these early bci's will allow more sophisticated bci's to come forward in the future. >> malcolm gay is a reporter with the boston globe. he writes about art and food for the boston globe. here is his book, "the brain electric." c-span, created by america's

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