Hitachi researchers move electrical devices with brain

William Atkins
Monday, 25 June 2007 19:09

Science - Health

Microsoft Office 365

They recently demonstrated the new technology, called optical tomography, at Hitachi’s Advanced Research Laboratory (ARL) in Hatoyama, which is located outside of Tokyo. At the ARL demonstration, Hitachi researchers controlled a toy train set using a headset worn by a human that was connected by optical fibers to a mapping device.

The underlying technology for this application is called optical topography, which is a type of spectroscopic method called near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS).

Spectroscopy is the scientific study and measurement of the interaction between electromagnetic radiation (such as light) and matter.

Using the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum (from wavelengths ranging between 800 and 2,500 nanometers), NIRS is typically applied to medical diagnostic procedures (such as blood sugar tests), along with quality control in the food/agrichemical industry.

However, when NIRS is used for non-invasive analysis and mapping of human brain (cortex) functions by detecting changes in the blood hemoglobin concentration associated with neural activity, as done by the Hitachi scientists, it is often times called optical topography, or OT for short.

OT is used to simultaneously detect and measure spectroscopic reflection and scattering from many different points in the brain. The function of OT is simply to send small amounts of infrared light through the surface of the brain in order to map changes in flood flow in the brain.

Thus, as demonstrated by Hitachi, when a human subject performs mathematical calculations, an electronic device is activated. When the subject stops these math functions, the device is stopped.

The new technology has various applications besides TV remote controls and toy trains. It may very likely some day allow disabled people to operate electric wheelchairs, artificial limbs, and artificial speech devices. It may allow people, in general, to operate computers and a host of other activities.