April 29, 2009, 1:32 pm

Overcoming Brain Injury

Heather Aucoin was in an accident 3 years ago and suffered from a brain injury as well as injuries to her face and ankles.  After the brain injury Heather has had problems with fatigue, is easily confused as well as distracted. However, these limitations have not been able to stop Heather’s indomitable spirit.  She wanted to dance.  So she auditioned for and was accepted by Dancestreams Youth Dance Company in Parksville Canada, and has excelled in a challenging sport.

The program is very demanding of its dancers, according to Canada.com “Because of the time limitations, work must continue to move forward each and every week, placing a lot of pressure on the dancers to absorb and maintain steps, counts and corrections from week to week with no opportunity to repeat lessons.” Heather met this challenge by bringing her own video camera to rehearsal, that way she could tape the sequences and then study them on her own during the week.

Her hard work has paid off, she has “been cast in many roles and has gradually taken on more and more responsibility within the group.”

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April 20, 2009, 12:05 pm

Posting to Twitter via Thought?

This may soon be a reality.  WTN writes that that Adam Wilson was able to post 23 characters to Twitter – using thoughts alone.  Wilson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student, is trying to perfect a communication system for those who no longer have functional control over their own bodies.  The brain interface was developed in collaboration with research scientist Gerwin Schalk and colleagues (Wadsworth Center in Albany, N.Y. ), Williams (a UW-Madison Assistant Professor of biomedical engineering) and Wilson were able to come up with a new method for communication.  The individual uses a keyboard displayed on a computer screen, and looks for the letter he/she wants to type – apparently when the brain recognizes what it was looking for there is a change in brain activity allowing the computer to understand that you want to select that letter.

Williams hopes the Twitter application is the nudge researchers need to refine development of the in-home technology. “A lot of the things that we’ve been doing are more scientific exercises,” he says. “This is one of the first examples where we’ve found something that would be immediately useful to a much larger community of people with neurological deficits.”

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, 12:01 pm

Is it a Brain Injury or Isn't It?

Recently a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine has caused something of a furor in brain injury circles. In “Care of War Veterans with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury — Flawed Perspectives,” the authors argue that vets are being misdiagnosed with mild brain injury.

While the article makes strong attempts to be scientifically grounded, the entire conundrum of diagnosing a mild brain injury reveals what nobody seems to be discussing: the current classifications for brain injury don’t apply any more. Our understanding of brain injury suggest a much more complex process is at work, and we need a new kind of perspective in order to address it.

While others will undoubtedly grapple with the dilemma of whether MTBI is overdiagnosed or not, brain injury professionals should be calling for more effective screening measures AND a broader understanding of brain injury.

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April 2, 2009, 8:34 am

Brain Machine Interface Technology

Talk about science fiction coming to life, it is amazing what researchers in Tokyo at Honda Motor Co. are doing. They have created a way for a computer to read brain waves – and then act. For example – some day, a person with locked-in-syndrome will be able to think “I’m hot, adjust the air-conditioning” and the robot will do it for the person. The benefits of such a system are limitless. Honda Motor Co. envisions the new system as someday being able to help around the house – multi-tasking made easy – need to water the plants, sweep the floor, and prepare dinner? No problem. Just “think it” and the robots will do the rest.

Right now the computer can only understand simple commands such as move right hand, left hand, foot, tongue. Furthermore the equipment is bulky and it takes an average of 2 to 3 hours for the reading device to learn the person’s brain, as everybody’s brain is different.

Breitbart.com reports “In a video shown Tuesday at Tokyo headquarters, a person wearing a helmet sat still but thought about moving his right hand—a thought that was picked up by cords attached to his head inside the helmet. After several seconds, Asimo, programmed to respond to brain signals, lifted its right arm.”

Honda says they still have a lot of work to do, such as make the reading-device smaller so it can be portable.

This new technology is truly amazing, just think of the implications – both awesome and terrifying.

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Click here to see the video

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