From: ST102078@BROWNVM.brown.edu (The Garth)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: SCI: Neural Interface (some answers :)
Date: 16 Nov 92 03:57:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Nov16.100318.10828
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu



I've notice a number of request lately for information about Neural
Interfacing / Neuro-Prosthetics; so I rounded up my reference
collection from the last few years.  Much of this was posted to Sci_VW
or Neur-Sci or just found puttering around in our University library.
Check out the u.washington.edu Archives for some more info.  I'm
pretty sure most of it is correct as I have chased down as many refs
as possible.
                   !ENJOY?
*NeuroMouse?:
TIME magazine 7/1/74 pg.67 Lawrence Pinneo a researcher @ Stanford
Reasearch Institute got 7-degrees of freedom from EEG reading anaylsis
could control a cursor UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT/SLOW/FAST/STOP with 60%
accuracy.

*Neuro Interfacing In the May 1990 issue of _Science_, Science intern
Sarah Williams reports on a neural interface device developed at
Stanford University [1].  The report Here is a summary of the
information in the article, corrected where necessary by drawing from
Kovacs' letter:

1. "Tapping into Nerve Conversations" (Research News), _Science_ 248,
p.  555 (4 May 1990). There's a good photo of the earlier 64-electrode
prototype chip.  2. "Neural Interfacing" (Letters), _Science_ 248,
pps.  1280-1281 (15 June 1990).

* :Neural prosthetic interfaces with the nervous system: Gerald Loeb,
Trends in Neuroscience 1989 vol 21 pg195-200
*Analog VSLI & Neural Systems,  Carver Mead QA76.5 .a44 1989
* :Artificial Vision for the Blind: Science 1974 440-444 vol183
* In a DISCOVER magazine this summer 7 or 8/92 there was an article
about :Making Brains: or some such.  Further refs from there include:
+Biocomputers:  The Next Generation in Japan, ed.  Tsuguchika, trans.
Norman Cook ISBN:0412357704
One of the koolest researchers was
Masuo Aizawa @ Tokyo Institute of Technology (Yokohama Campus), who is
working on making an artificial brain (neuron by artificial neuron!!!)

* Many neural prosthetics have clinical application so check out
Artificial Organ books:
+ Neural Prosthesis: Fundamental Studies, Agnew & Douglas
+ Artificial Organs, JD Andrade et al, VCH 1986 RD130.I588 R
+ Implants Recon. the Human Body, Lynch 1982  RD130.L88 R
+ Spare-Part Surgery, Longmore  1969    RD130.L64
+ The Body Shop, J Cauwels, CV Mogby Co,  St Louis 1986  RD130.c38
+ Visual Prosthesis, Academic Press 1971 p.315-319 This one is (I think)
by G.S.Brindley, the guy who made the first visual prosthesis back in
1959 or so.

Also check out some recent reports on Neural Nets:
+ Handbook of Neural Computing Applications, Maren QA76.5 M232 1990 R
+ In the Image of the Brain:  Breaking the barrier btw Human Mind and
Intelligent Machines, Jubak, Little-Brown&Co, 1992

-Subject: Neural Interfacing and VR

Neural Interfacing (and its application to VR) might be here sooner than
you think.  Some 15 years ago a UCLA research project successfully used
VERY low end minicomputers to detect specific thoughts.  The basic idea
was/is that it possible to pattern match a properly filtered set of
brain waves to a previously captured sample.  When you:  e got a good
match, you can respond to the command in a manner similar to voice
recognition.  I recommend that you go to your local university library,
and borrow the thesis entitled:  Computer System Architecture for a
Brain Computer Interface Ronald Olch 1975(?)

RonaldUs master thesis was pretty dry reading about the actual physical
layout of the lab and and the kinds of minicomputers, punch tape
readers, plotters, cabling, etc, etc.  There was a notable absense of
specific algorhythms and sample code.  I did ch  ckle a bit when I read
a paragraph describing what the coming powerful (in 1975?)
microprocessors would do to improve this process of recognizing
thoughts.  Its 1990, can you say DSP?  Having read this, I managed to
track Mr. Olch down and interogated :-) him about the actual mechanics
of recognizing specific thoughts.  Very Interesting stuff.  Its not as
hard as you might think (pun intented!).  Mr. Olch is no longer involved
with this  research... But he did tell me that the Principal Researcher
was a Jaques (sp?)  Vidal.  While Jaques hasnUt published under his
name, he has been a co-authored a variety of papers which have a lot to
do with where VR/Neural Interfacing is going.

:Subject:  Re: Neural Interfacing and VR (this copied start of the list)
> thesis entitled:  > Computer System Architecture for a Brain Computer
Interface > Ronald Olch > 1975(?)  I did check up on some of this work
for a related purpose - measurement of stress to guage user satisfaction
with features of the computer interface (submited for publication).  The
specific references for (some of) J.J.  Vidal's work are (from my notes,
o  iginally Comp & Info Syst Abstr):

"Toward direct brain-computer communication," J.J.  Vidal.  Annual
Review of Biophysics and Bioengineering, Vol 4, p. 157.

"Biocybernetic control in man-machine interaction" (AD-777 720/4GA),
J.J.  Vidal.  NTIS, Sprinfield, VA, April 1974, 101 pages.

Same, (N77-15662), J.J.  Vidal, M.D.  Puck, R.J.  Hickman, R.H.  Olch.
NTIS, Springfield, VA.  March 1976, 99 pages.

Same, (N77-15663), by Same.  NTIS, Springfield, VA.  September 1975, 82
pp.

"Real-time detection of brain events in EEG," J.J.  Vidal.  IEEE
Proceedings, Vol.  65 (5), May 1977, pp.  633-641.

"Generation of ECG prototype waveforms by piecewise correlation
averaging," Hecht and Vidal.  IEEE Trans on Pattern Analysis & Machine
Intelligence, Vol PAMI-2 (5), September 1980, pp 415-420.

I must admit that I didn't track down all these references since it soon
became obvious that there is a lot of this sort of research.  Most of it
is found in Psychology libraries under the title "evoked potentials."
It is used for various purposes rangin   from measurement of stress and
mental workload (MACINTER has some related articles) to measurement of
visual accuity in children.  It is also used to monitor patients during
surgery from remote sights (Sclabassi, PhD, MD at U Pitt was doing some
of this  type of work. thanks to:>>>>>>Paul Mullins FC137501@YSUB.YSU.EDU

: Neural Prosthesis (yet another LOG Mail item some repeated from above)

Agnew, William F. & Douglas B. McCreery (Eds).  Neural Prostheses:
Fundamental Studies.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ.  1990.  ISBN 0-13-615444-1.

Girvin, John P. Current status of artifical vision by electrocortical
stimulation.  Can J Neurol Sci 15:58-62. 1988.

Loeb, Gerald E. Neural prosthetic interfaces with the nervous system.
TINS 12(5)195-201.  1989.

Veraart, C. Neurophysiological approach to the design of visual
prostheses: a theoretical discussion.  J Med Eng & Tech 13(1/2):57-62.
1989.

Search literature for work by G S Brindley (retired) & D N Rushton MRC
Neurological Prostheses Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London.  Also
search for work by W H Dobelle (was at U Utah -- now running a
neuroprostheses company -- "The Dobelle Institute" fo   Avery Labs).
Brindley did much of the fundamental work on visual prostheses -- and
Dobelle did much of the fundamental work on auditory prostheses.  I
spoke with Brindley about two years ago -- he rightly pointed out one of
the main problems with design of sensory prostheses using any form of
visual stimulation was the immense cost and long duration of the
necessary research work -- he managed to stud   three patients w/
chronicly implanted visual cortex stimulator arrays in his career.
thanks to:  >>>>>>AJ Annala

Also check out
BYTE Oct 1992, pg 137-146   :Silicon Brains:
IEEE Trans on BioMed Eng vol 37 no12 Dec 1990 : A new mode of
communication between man and his surroundings:
SCIENCE NEWS Dec 21&28 1991 :Analog Silicon Neurons Mimic the Real Thing:

Thats all for now, Cheerio!!


"By hiding the eyes, mirrorshades prevent     Arioch
 the forces of normalcy that seeing that      aka GKS
 one is crazed and possibly dangerous."
                           -Mirrorshades    ST102078@BROWNVM