The present and future of our brain

1. About how to directly connect the brain to the world

The brain is a gigantic network of nerve cells constantly exchanging signals with each other in the form of electrical impulses, and the echoes of the electric fields of these impulses can be registered directly on the scalp. An electroencephalogram (EEG) is just a record of these “echoes”. If they are amplified a million times, turned into numbers and entered into a computer, then the main mystery of the neural interface begins there – decoding a person’s intentions by EEG.

The neurocomputer interface, or neurointerface, is a technology that allows us to learn how to interact with the outside world without the help of muscle actions, without voice, directly from the brain, based on the registration of its electrical activity.

The logic is simple: our intention to perform some action should be manifested in an EEG change. These changes are decoded using computer programs. Based on the results of decryption, commands are generated for the corresponding devices. For example, I want to turn on the TV – this intention is manifested in a change in the EEG parameters.

If these changes are identified immediately, at the moment they occurred, then it remains to electronically form a command that the TV understands, more precisely, its sensor module.

2.About mind reading

Do we read a person’s mind this way? Not, We basically can’t read our minds., because for this we would have to make a correspondence table between an unimaginable number of mental combinations and the corresponding changes in the EEG. Moreover, every thought is multifaceted, its interpretation depends on the context.

Brain-computer technology is based not on the decoding of thoughts, but on the detection in the EEG of markers of a small number of pre-tested intentions. The variety of thoughts is incommensurable with the variety of skills. No matter how many repeated EEG recordings are made, for example, when imagining a red rose, each new recording will differ from the previous one so much that it is easily mixed with the recording when mentally imagining a Bactrian camel. And if we talk about intracerebral electrodes, then even 100 thousand contacts are disproportionately small compared to a million billion contacts between nerve cells.

And the biggest problem: we do not know the codes on which nerve cells communicate with each other. But even if we were to recognize them, it would do nothing, since the codes are constantly being modified in accordance with the constantly updated context.

3. About the benefits of science: communicators and manipulators

The practical use of brain-computer interfaces lies not in the field of mind reading, but primarily in medicine. In particular, our laboratory is preparing the first in the country neurocommunicator for patients with severe speech disorders and motor function after strokes, craniocerebral injuries.

Already now we have anyone can sit at a computer screen and type text without touching the keyboard, simply focusing attention sequentially on a particular letter. The speed is only 12-15 characters per minute. But we are talking about a medical project, when the patient has no way to type a text, except to use volitional efforts for this.

There are more than 300 people suffering from total paralysis in the USA alone, who cannot make their desires and intentions known by any movement. If you provide them with such an interface, then in fact it will be a new life for them. Moreover, instead of letters, such patients can be given the opportunity to press the buttons of the control panel by willpower: bring water, call a doctor, turn on the air conditioner, access the Internet, and so on.

Next in line are neuromanipulators, that is, devices that allow us to perform physical actions by the power of our intention: to give something to ourselves, to move something.

They are controlled differently: in the encephalogram we find changes characteristic of the moments when a person thinks, for example, about the movement of his own hand. Based on neuromanipulators, we are now creating neurotrainer that will allow you to convey the intention of a person move the paralyzed arm towards the exoprosthesis attached to that arm.

The training is to realize the intention in the movement of the hand. As a result, the brain gradually reorganizes its resources in such a way as to establish a connection with the muscles of the hand, and then the exoskeleton can be removed, by analogy with crutches, which we refuse when the bone heals.

4. About prostheses that extend life

In the overwhelming majority of cases, at the moment when a person dies, his brain is still full of life. Therefore, the task of absorbing the human body with prostheses will soon arise, which will need to be directly controlled by the brain.

Neurointerfaces will turn inside a person to provide not only control of artificial limbs, but also systems of regulation of life activity. I do not know how far building a symbiosis between an artificial body and a natural brain can go, but this is not about creating fantastic electronic monsters or cyborgs, but about extending the life of each of us.

We are already accustomed to the idea that human life can continue not only thanks to foreign organs, but also with the help of artificial inclusions in the body: heart valves, vascular scaffolds, metal hip and knee joints, plastic eye lenses, and so on. Perhaps it is neural interface technologies that will become decisive for the full implementation of the resources of the human brain.

5. About the limits of brain development

Together with the use of therapy against biological aging of the brain a person will receive the maximum possible time limits for his development and improvement. The brain is perhaps the only organ of the body for which there are neither theoretical nor experimental grounds for complete prosthetics. However, this does not close the prospect of creating prostheses that somehow mimic the original function.

After all, the brain is a highly complex, but rather structured information-analytical device. As in a computer, we cannot replace the central processor, but we are able to somehow fix a burned-out USB port from “improvised” materials. For the brain, apparently, such local solutions are also possible.