Hands-Free Keyboards?
Direct Neural Interfacing may not be a reality yet, but the development of controlling computers purely with our brains is certainly making headway. And Dr. José Contreras-Vidal, along with his team of researchers from the bioengineering and kinesiology departments of the University of Maryland, College Park, have been making some pretty big strides in this direction.
In an article in the March issue of The Journal of Neuroscience Dr. Contreras-Vidal and colleagues showed that with just an electrode-covered cap and some clear gel they can use an array of 34 electrodes to capture our brain thinking that it has been typing on a keyboard using good old electroencephalography, or EEG. Yes, that’s right, once dialed in, no actual key pressing was necessary. Some of the patients in this study have already managed to communicate to one another through a word processor. And all of this without any hardware wired directly into anyone’s brain; just a cap worn on the head.
More fascinating is that while the testing right now is being done with a 34 electrode cap, most of the useful data is actually just coming from two points, the primary sensorimotor cortex, and the inferior parietal lobule. Meaning that theoretically it may be possible in the future to actually reduce the cap to only contain two electrodes.
What’s more, Dr. Contreras-Vidal has no intention of just creating a simple brain-keyboard. “We hope to show that a person with a stroke or an amputee would be able to control an assistive device, ” says Dr. Contreras-Vidal. To this end he already has healthy subjects controlling a computer’s cursor on the screen, and controlling an artificial hand. One day his research could be fundamental in the control of artificial limbs in a safe and affordable way.
Dr. Contreras-Vidal also hopes to one day incorporate some form of sensory feedback into the technology. His belief is that visual feedback is a slow and imperfect means of confirming that what you think you’re doing is what you’re actually doing. “We think it’s important to use other types of feedback, too, because vision is a slow signal.”
It’s a fascinating realm of possibilities. What was once a toy may soon be the future of prosthetics and computer interfacing!



