In the 21st century, the state of modern medicine is rapidly taking its course, using the most updated technologies to improve treatment and the overall condition of patients. One of these ultra-modern techniques are Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs). Broadly speaking, BCIs translate the electrical activity of the brain into the physical movement of, say, a robotic limb. In order to investigate how the technology can be best utilized in a healthcare context, Dr. Samejima, Dr. Khorasani, and other scientists explored the positive effect BCIs have on spinal cord injury (SCI), and more specifically, how they could recover limb function in affected patients. The study discusses utilizing rat models, which were handled through spinal surgery. The “implementation” of an SCI allowed researchers to test the effects of BCI. Results showed that the BCI interface improved the forelimb function of all rats in the experimental group (Samejima et al., 2021).
Extending upon this study and ones similar to it, the new boundary that is being pushed for patient treatment is the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) as a mediator between the BCI and the human. One such study is done by Zhang et al. and is titled The combination of brain-computer interfaces and artificial intelligence: applications and challenges. Here, it is stated that, in the past, scientists were unable to distinguish between a person’s intentions from general electrical activity in the brain to match it to the robotic arm (Zhang et al., 2020). This is where AI comes in, acting as an assistant and aiding humans in their ability to analyze neural activity.
Similar to the formerly mentioned study, Zhang et al. dives into the potential for limb rehabilitation using AI, which would likely allow for unprecedented quickness in decoding signals and therefore improvement in the patient’s condition and percentage of limb function recovery. Along with this, other fields that can look for improvements with the implementation of AI are user cursor control, somatosensation and feedback, auditory restoration, and even optical prosthetics.
The study concludes by stating that AI’s biggest impact on BCI treatment is “the ability to achieve real-time or near-real-time modulation of training parameters and subsequent adjustments in response to active real-time feedback” (Zhang et al., 2020). Overall, with such a wide range of uses, this tandem of highly advanced technologies should benefit the medical field for eons to come. With this field being highly and thoroughly researched in the recent past, the trend will continue at a potentially greater rate and lead to more flushed-out applications to improve the way humans deliver healthcare.
References:
Samejima, S., Khorasani, A., Ranganathan, V., Nakahara, J., Tolley, N. M., Boissenin, A., Shalchyan, V., Daliri, M. R., Smith, J. R., & Moritz, C. T. (2021). Brain-Computer-spinal interface restores upper limb function after spinal cord injury. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 29, 1233–1242. https://doi.org/10.1109/tnsre.2021.3090269
Zhang, X., Ma, Z., Zheng, H., Li, T., Chen, K., Wang, X., Liu, C., Xu, L., Wu, X., Lin, D., & Lin, H. (2020). The combination of brain-computer interfaces and Artificial Intelligence: Applications and challenges. Annals of Translational Medicine, 8(11), 712–712. https://doi.org/10.21037/atm.2019.11.109
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