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GIA 2007 Excellence Winner
The Robert G. Fenley Writing Award - Solicited ArticlesUniversity of Chicago Medical CenterMind Over Matter Excerpt from article: Listening to the brain is no small feat, and if that were the brightest note in this little concert, it would be worth an ovation. But Nicholas Hatsopoulos, an assistant professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, can do more than eavesdrop. Along with colleagues at Brown University, he has developed a way to record signals sent out by large groups of neurons— commands telling the body how and where to move—and to translate the orders into language a computer can understand and act on. The technology is called a brain-computer interface—BCI for short—and it's not a new phenomenon. Scientists have tinkered with BCI since the 1970s, but only in the past decade has the technology's true potential been realized. The main thrust today is developing BCI systems to aid people who are paralyzed by injury or illness.While these patients' limbs may be stilled, studies show that the motor cortex is not. Hatsopoulos's team is one of only about half a dozen university research groups working on this problem in the United States. Ten years ago, Hatsopoulos and John Donoghue, his former postdoctoral advisor at Brown University, became the first scientists to teach monkeys how to move a computer cursor with their minds. Two years ago, they taught a person to do it—a quadriplegic who was able to turn on a television, check e-mail, and wiggle the fingers of an artificial hand—all with his thoughts alone. Read the full narrative (Word document) Contact: Catherine Gianaro, Catherine.Gianaro@uchospitals.edu Back to GIA 2007 Awards for Excellence Winners |
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