This biomed PhD student microblogs with brainwaves

Over 5.6 million people in the US have some form of paralysis, with strokes being the number-one cause, followed by spinal-cord injury. (Arthritis-related movement problems were not included in this survey.)

The ability to knock out a quick email, text message, blog post, or tweet is a challenge for over 5M people.  University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student Adam Wilson developed a brain-computer interface to post to Twitter using his brain waves.

“In collaboration with research scientist Gerwin Schalk and colleagues at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, N.Y., Williams and Wilson began developing a simple, elegant communication interface based on brain activity related to changes in an object on screen.

“The interface consists, essentially, of a keyboard displayed on a computer screen. “The way this works is that all the letters come up, and each one of them flashes individually,” says Williams. “And what your brain does is, if you’re looking at the ‘R’ on the screen and all the other letters are flashing, nothing happens. But when the ‘R’ flashes, your brain says, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Something’s different about what I was just paying attention to.’ And you see a momentary change in brain activity.”

“Wilson, who used the interface to post the Twitter update, likens it to texting on a cell phone. “You have to press a button four times to get the character you want,” he says of texting. “So this is kind of a slow process at first.”

“However, as with texting, users improve as they practice using the interface. “I’ve seen people do up to eight characters per minute,” says Wilson.”

You can see a video of Wilson using the device here.

You can follow me on Twitter where I post on what’s crossing my desk in LEDs, sensors, and power efficient electronics:  twitter.com/margeryc