Story Highlights
- Story Highlights• Technology translates brain motion into electric signals•
- Optical topology analyzes brain's blood flow• Technology could one day replace remote controls
- HATOYAMA, Japan (AP) -- Forget the clicker: A new technology in Japan could let you control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity.
- The "brain-machine interface" developed by Hitachi analyzes slight changes in the brain's blood flow and translates brain motion into electric signals.
- A cap connects by optical fibers to a mapping device, which links, in turn, to a toy train set via a control computer and motor during one recent demonstration at Hitachi's Advanced Research Laboratory in Hatoyama, just outside Tokyo.
- "Take a deep breath and relax," said Kei Utsugi, a researcher, while demonstrating the device on Wednesday.
- At his prompting, a reporter did simple calculations in her head, and the train sprang forward -- apparently indicating activity in the brain's frontal cortex, which handles problem solving.
- Activating that region of the brain -- by doing sums or singing a song -- is what makes the train run, according to Utsugi. When one stops the calculations, the train stops, too.
- Underlying Hitachi's brain-machine interface is a technology called optical topography, which sends a small amount of infrared light through the brain's surface to map out changes in blood flow.
- Although brain-machine interface technology has traditionally focused on medical uses, makers like Hitachi and Japanese automaker Honda Motor have been racing to refine the technology for commercial application.
- Hitachi's scientists are set to develop a brain TV remote controller letting users turn a TV on and off or switch channels by only thinking.
- Honda, whose interface monitors the brain with an MRI machine like those used in hospitals, is keen to apply the interface to intelligent, next-generation automobiles.
Part 2: next day
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