Brain matters

From labelling sleep brain patterns to anticipate epileptic fits to using thoughts to control objects, researchers at the University of Malta are studying the brain to improve our health, says Edward Duca.

“Yes, this is the ability to control objects with your thoughts,” confirms Owen Falzon.

I conjure up images of putting on a headset and becoming a Jedi warrior zipping objects through the air. But no, this isn’t telekinesis – ghost tricks will have to wait another day. Instead, what Mr Falzon’s research can do is help the elderly and disabled, move avatars through games, open doors, and more.

Mr Falzon forms part of a team at the University of Malta studying brain to computer interface (BCI) devices. In other words, brain signals are translated into commands using computer software. Those commands perform specific actions depending on the setup, for example, to move a wheelchair.

The most important factor which enables BCI devices to understand commands is that the computer can distinguish between different brain patterns. Those patterns could be imagining moving your arm left or right, or thinking of a square or circle. When the computer detects you are imagining moving your arm, it performs the command, like turning a wheelchair.

To identify different brain patterns, the computer first needs to detect brain activity. Detection is nothing new – Hans Berger discovered it in 1924 by sticking silver wires under the scalps of his patients and hooking them up to a voltmeter, which allowed him to detect the brain’s electrical activity. Our brains are filled with neurons that carry messages through electrical pulses from one part of the brain to another.

What Mr Falzon uses for his research to measure brain activity is a bit more sophisticated and much more comfortable. A scalp-cap is attached to the user’s head and electrodes are screwed into the cap till they touch the skull. Not the most attractive device, but these electrodes detect the electrical signals in the brain and display them on a screen. So, researchers can study brain patterns.

Most research in BCI devices study locations individually, but Mr Falzon’s latest work focuses on interactions between different parts of the brain. Multiple areas of the brain interact and work together to complete a single task, like lifting a glass of orange juice or playing the latest drawing app.

“I developed an algorithm that can automatically discriminate between different mental tasks,” says Mr Falzon. “The algorithm identifies the best interactions of the brain.”

By looking at more than one location at the same time, the computer program should be better at figuring out whether a person is thinking about moving left or right, and therefore whether the program should tell the wheelchair to change direction.

Unfortunately, this new approach is not very useful for interpreting movements. It provides insight into which parts of the brain are communicating with each other, but does not make the system more accurate.

For left and right hand movements, taking simple brainpower is enough. But this new approach could be more useful for speech, a higher level thought.

Since at least 2009, reports have leaked from the Pentagon about DARPA’s (the US military’s outlandish research arm featured in the film The Men Who Stare At Goats) research into BCI devices that could let soldiers speak to each other only by thinking about it. The brain gives off specific patterns before it vocalises speech – if they manage to turn these patterns into words efficiently, telepathy could be within reach with some simple headgear. Mr Falzon’s algorithm might be applicable to interpreting these signals.

Mr Falzon’s research is linked to that conducted by Tracey Camilleri, another member of the team led by Kenneth Camilleri. Her latest work focused on applying aircraft sensor failure detection technology to interpreting brain signals. She adapted an algorithm used to continuously detect if a plane is functioning correctly to sleep patterns.

When a person is asleep, their brain passes through different phases of activity. The brain continuously has some background activity, but it can also give bursts of activity, such as a sleep spindle or K complex.

A sleep spindle is thought to inhibit brain processing keeping a person asleep, while a K complex seems important for sleep-based memory.

Ms Camilleri’s algorithm automatically labelled sleep brain activity as being background, a sleep spindle or a K complex. Her programme did this every one hundredth of a second. “It labelled the data on the fly,” she says, thus reducing the time lag which could save a clinician’s time.

Labelling brain sleep pattern data is standard procedure. Abnormal patterns have been linked to mental diseases from schizophrenia to epilepsy. In epilepsy, it is common practice. Ms Camilleri’s advance was to label sleep brain patterns in real-time using little computing power when compared to what’s out there already.

Prof. Camilleri envisions how in the future such labelling could be linked to a wireless device that warns an epileptic sufferer and those around them that a fit is about to occur. “You could also have a system that injects the user with a drug when the onset of an epileptic fit is detected,” he says. Obviously, this is still in development.

Before such radical advances, Ms Camilleri would like to put this into an application to use more complex data like brain patterns that can move a cursor on a screen. “If a person is totally paralysed at least you can give them a source of communication,” she hopes.

Right now the technology is limited. Two major problems are the reliability of interpreting users’ brain commands and the rate of communication. Mr Falzon’s work will help increase reliability while Ms Camilleri’s method could make the technology faster. Imagine a wheelchair user is trying to move it left or right with thoughts alone. To avoid obstacles, like an oncoming car, they would want it to respond immediately.

Once these are developed, people with limited movement could wear a cheap headset and navigate the web easily. They could open doors and curtains by looking at them. Change TV channels without needing to press a remote. Simply put, they could lead an easier and better life. Inevitably these technologies will enter the commercial market. Who wouldn’t love to play games simply by looking at a door, or thinking that it should open. Mr Falzon finishes off by saying that, “For healthy users, we’re likely to see reliable systems within five years.”

I cannot wait for that future.

Edward Duca is a freelance science writer, editor and communicator with a Ph.D. in Genetics.

A longer version of this article will appear in Think, the new University of Malta research magazine. Follow the author on twitter @DwardD