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Write With Your Eyes

It's every writer's dream: just look at the page and have the words appear.

Jean Lorenceau, a neuroscientist at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, has developed an interface to do that, by tracking eye movement. With a little training, he says, a person can learn to control a cursor on a screen.

This isn't a cure for writer's block, though. Lorenceau sees it as an aid to people who are paralyzed and want to communicate. He plans to test it with people who have Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.

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The system works by attaching a camera to the person's head (using a frame for glasses). The camera tracks eye movements. That's more complicated than it sounds, though, because a person's eyes don't move smoothly.

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Ordinarily, when a human eye is not following something that moves, it makes what are called saccades. These are tiny, sudden movements. A good way to see this is to watch someone's eyes as they look out the window of a car or subway train. The eyes will smoothly track what's out the window, and snap back. The eyes move smoothly only when they track the moving objects (or, strictly speaking, objects that appear to move across the field of view).

Lorenceau 's system tracks the eyes for 30 seconds at a time. The movement data is sent to a computer that can then ignore the saccades. If the user moves the eyes as though they were writing something, the eye behaves as though it were tracking a real object even if one isn't there. It does take some practice though, because the person is learning to "see" his or her own eye movements, which are largely involuntary.

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The system isn't as sophisticated as it could be -- there are ways to add processing to smooth out the movement more. But for poeple who cannot write with their hands, this technology could allow them to communicate more fully.

Image: Lorenceau et al., Current Biology

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Retinal Prosthesis Could Help The Blind See

A retinal implant has given a brief glimpse of light to a small number of blind people, and could one day be a common treatment for vision loss due to injury or disease.

Shawn Kelly, a senior systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, has developed a computer chip that translates camera images into electrical pulses that the nerves inside the brain can understand. The result is vision.

The cameras are incredibly small and mounted to a pair of glasses. The digital information picked up from the camera is sent along a wire to a thin film surgically implanted in the back of the patient's eye, between the sclera and the retina. The electrical signals stimulate the nerves in the retina, and that allows the patient to see. The system is powered via induction -- not much current is necessary since the electric field doesn't have to penetrate far into the head.

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It's a far cry from the bionic eyes of science fiction, though. The resolution is only 256 pixels total, because that's how many electrodes can be made to fit on the back of the film. A typical digital camera has resolutions measured in millions of pixels and ordinary human vision involves approximately 1 million nerves, and more than 100 millon rod and cone cells. But it is something.

"At 256 we start to get some function back to people," Kelly told Discovery News.  He said people who tested the system reported the ability to see some shapes and light and dark regions. The tests were not "field tests" in real-world conditions, but situations where the implant was used for a few hours and then removed.

There have been other proposals for retinal implants. Recent work in Britain used a self-powered retinal implant that is powered by light that enters the eye rather than the external glasses. At the University of Tubingen in Germany, another project involves an implant that has a 1,500 pixel resolution that is inserted below the retina.

Kelly said the difference with his design is that the processor is sealed well enough that no water vapor gets inside. Ordinarily the liquids in the eye (and the body generally) are in chemical equilibrium, but any implanted device with wires has spaces in it that can allow small amounts of vapor to form, which can reduce the implant's effectiveness." We have more intelligence in the eye," Kelly said. "Ours is designed to be stable long term."

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One kind of blindness that will be targeted with this device is retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary disease that destroys the cells in the eye that recieve light. Military veterans could also be helped. (Kelly recently recieved a $1.1 million grant from the Department of Veterans' affairs). Some veterans of World War II and Korea suffer from age-related macular degeneration. Others had their eyes damaged by laser rangefinders, Kelly said. The lasers (which are far more powerful than barcode scanners or CD players) can injure the eyes in a way that causes damage later in life.

Image: Carnegie Mellon University

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Bionic Ear Could Replace Cochlear Implants

While cochlear implants have been around for a while, they aren't true "bionic ears." There are still external components, such as a microphone.

Now a team of engineers at the University of Utah and Case Western Reserve have built a device that could put more of the components inside the ear, making them more convenient, as well as less bulky.

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In a normal ear, sound comes in through the ear canal, hits the eardrum and causes it to vibrate, which sends a chain of vibrations through tiny bones called the malleus, incus and stapes. The stapes hits the cochlea, a fluid-filled chamber, and that moves the hair cells on its inner membrane. That in turn stimulates the auditory nerve, which carries the sound signals to the brain.

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Darrin J. Young, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Utah, moved the external components inside the ear and came up with another way to stimulate the auditory nerve. Sound moves through the ear canal to the eardrum, which vibrates as it does normally. At the point where the eardrum connects to the malleus, called the umbo, a tiny acceleromoter is implanted to pick up the vibrations. The accelerometer is attached to a chip, and together they serve as a microphone that picks up the sound vibrations and converts them into electrical signals that reach the cochlea via electrodes.

That's very different from an ordinary cochlear implant, which has the microphone, signal processor and transmitter placed outside the ear.

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To date, tests have all been done on cadavers, so while the researchers know that the device works (the sound signals are being transmitted to the right parts of the ear and vibrating the umbo), that doesn't tell anyone what the experience might be like for patients. Tests in living patients are still a few years away.

There is also still work to be done in improving the microphone, which has some trouble with lower-frequency, quieter sounds. The charger for the device would also still be external, just as in conventional cochlear implants.

Photo: A tiny microphone is shown attached at right to a cadaver’s umbo, where the eardrum (under left part of device) meets the hearing bones. The device measures about one-tenth inch by one-quarter inch.

Credit: Case Western Reserve University / University of Utah

via University of Utah

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Brain Implant Helps Paralyzed Hand Move

The dream of true cybernetics -- merging man with machine -- just got a bit closer. Scientists at Northwestern University built a device that can send signals from the brain directly to paralyzed muscles, causing them to move by thought. This technology could help patients who have suffered spinal cord injuries regain the use of their limbs.

The work was done in rhesus monkeys, who were given a local anesthetic to block nerve activity at the elbow, which caused temporary paralysis of the hand. Before they were given the anesthetic, though, the monkeys were trained to grasp a ball, lift it and release it into a tube. The signals from their brains to their hands and arms during these activities were recorded via an electrode implanted painlessly into their brains. After many repetitions, the researchers were able to see what kinds of signals were necessary to cause the the limbs to move. It turned out that the information was encoded in only about 100 neurons.

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Knowing that, the scientists designed a device, called a multi-electrode array, that was able to pick up the tell-tale signals from the 100 or so neurons, decipher them, and send them to the muscles -- bypassing the anesthetized nerves.

The signals that reached the muscles made them contract, enabling the monkeys to pick up the balls almost as well as they did before they were given the anesthetic.

The motions weren't perfect. Lee E. Miller, a professor in neuroscience at Northwestern and the lead investigator of the study, said it might be because it takes some time for a monkey to learn how to use its arm again this way.

Other research teams have enabled monkeys to take mental control of machines, and there has been some work done in humans on linking prostheses to neural signals. But the big advance here is better voluntary control and directly connecting to the brain. Previous efforts have been geared to interpreting signals through the skin at the end of an amputee's stump, for example, or controlling arms via shoulder movements. This type of interface provides voluntary movement more like that experienced naturally.

via Northwestern University

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Shark Attack Victim Gets 'Bionic' Leg

Thought-controlled bionic limbs are still a way off (though not far). In the meantime, a project at Vanderbilt University is building the next best thing: a “smart” prosthesis that gives amputees a more natural gait.

Michael Goldfarb, a professor of mechanical engineering, at Vanderbilt's Center for Intelligent Mechatronics, has been working for several years with Craig Hutto, who lost his leg in 2005 when he was attacked by a shark. Hutto, who is a lab assistant, has offered valuable input on what works and what doesn’t work for amputees. That has gone a long way towards making the bionic leg comfortable and workable in real-world conditions.

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The bionic limb is a step beyong conventional prosthetic devices. It has a computer with a lot more processing power. For instance, Motors in the leg are controlled by sophisticated sensors that detect the user’s motion and move in unison. The hardware and software routinely checks if the wearer is stumbling, and if he is, causes the leg to plant itself in a stable spot.

Advances in battery and motor technologies have made it possible to run the bionic leg for days on a single charge. It;s also light, weighing about nine pounds, which makes a big difference when trying to climb stairs. Many amputees have a tough time with stairs and slopes because the artificial limb is so heavy. It's also a lot less cumbersome than exoskeleton-based designs.

All this adds up to a more natural gait.

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So far, the leg has gone through seven iterations –- fifteen if you count the work done on the electronics alone. Goldfarb's team is also working on arms and an exoskeleton to aid in physcial therapy. But eventually, such prostheses will likely become commonplace, and for many people like Craig Hutto, the act of taking a stroll won't be so daunting anymore. 

Image: John Russell, Vanderbilt University. A close up of Craig Hutto, wearing the leg.

 

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Device Gives Doctors and Patients X-Ray Vision (Kind Of)

X-ray vision has long been a popular trope of science fiction and comic books. Many a superhero has summoned the unique power to squint their way to fame by glaring through walls.

Arguably superheroes in their own right, physical therapists could soon be using a device, called AnatOnMe, that gives them the powr to see beneath a patient's skin. While it's not exactly X-ray vision, the Microsoft researchers who developed the technique hope its valiant power of persuasion will motivate patients to keep up with their therapies.

The researchers say that improving patient compliance with medical treatments, such as self-administration of drugs and exercises, is essential to a successful healing process.

"Despite this, compliance remains an elusive goal. For example, studies have placed the rate of non-compliance with courses of treatment for chronic conditions at between 30 percent and 50 percent," states a paper written by Microsoft researchers Tao Ni, Amy Karlson and Daniel Wigdor.

Therefore they "developed an integrated solution for seeking medical information, photo and video capture of disease status and treatment plans for documentation, and a shared, interactive display to support patient education."

AnatOnMe projects an image of underlying bone structure, muscle tissue, tendons, or nerves onto the skin, giving patients a better understanding of their injury and what measures they need to take to help the healing process.

The prototype device comes in two parts. The first consists of a handheld projector, an digital camera and an infrared camera. The second part contains a laser pointer and control buttons.

Rather than using a complicated autocorrection system to map the image of the internal injury onto the patient's skin, the prototype draws from a cache stock photos used to show one of six types of injury. Therapists simply point the projector and line it up by eye. To select options, therapists use the laser pointer, which is detected by the infrared camera.

Doctors or therapists can also use AnatOnMe to project images onto a wall.

The paper and AnatOnMe were presented this week in Vancouver at CHI 2011, the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Image: Courtesy Microsoft Research

[via Technology Review]

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Mini Horse Gets Prosthetic Leg

Prostethic limbs are advancing in leaps and bounds. Innovations in computers, brain-machine interfaces and robotics are leading to bionic legs that help paralyzed people walk and thought-controlled limbs, like the one this Italian man had.

But it's not just humans who are benefiting. This cat received artificial legs when it was maimed and now a horse has a prosthetic leg. In this AP video new story, we're told of Midnite, a miniature horse that was born missing his hoof and part of a bone. His owners didn't give him medical attention and eventually authorities seized the horse and brought him to Ranch Hand Rescue, located near Fort Worth, Tex. The handlers decided that, hey, if humans could have prosthetic limbs, why not horses. And this one seems to be doing excellent.

It reminds me of a story I heard a while back of another horse, called Molly, that was a victim of the Katrina hurricane in Louisiana. She was abandoned by her owners after the storm struck and wandered around on her own for several weeks before being rescued. Once rescued, she was attacked by a dog and nearly died. Her gnawed right leg became infected and with all of the other disaster-related issues going on at the time, she almost didn't get the medical attention she needed. But then a kind vet decided to help her by getting her an artificial leg. Molly now works with her owner visiting people at shelters and nursing home to inspire and uplift them. A children's book was written in her honor called Molly the Pony.

Perhaps Molly and Midnite should meet one day. I'm sure they'd make great pals.

 

Underwater Treadmill: Immediate Payoff for Spinal Cord Victims

Sandra Stevens, a physical therapist at Middle Tennessee State University, is using an underwater treadmill to improve the lives of spinal cord patients. Some of them were only able to walk for a few minutes in their daily life, before having to sit down. But after an eight-week study, the patients were walking 32 to 34 minutes -- a huge improvement.

Using an underwater treadmill is not the typical therapy for people who have suffered spinal cord trauma. Usually doctors put patients in a harness over a treadmill and use robotics to move the person’s legs. But in the tank, the patients were responsible for moving their own legs.

Other advantages of walking in water include:

• Along with triggering nerves in the heart to beat faster, it also stimulates the impaired nerves that trigger walking.
• It improves muscle tone in legs coupled and gradually increases a person's ability to raise their heart rate.
• It produces greater blood flow, which increases cardiovascular activity.
• It enhances the patient's confidence to walk on his own.

Photo courtesy Middle Tennessee State University