More accurate and minimally invasive than Musk’s brain-computer interface, the ultrasound brain reading method is here

There is new news coming out of the brain-computer interface track.

IEEE Spectrum news, a new minimally invasive ultrasound brain-computer interface device is under development.

This device changes the traditional brain-computer interface medium EEG to ultrasound.

The principle is to use direct focused ultrasound (FUS) to change the action potential of neurons, using a technology called Functional Ultrasound Imaging (fUSI), through the Doppler effectMeasure local blood flow changes to monitor neural activity within brain regions.

Medical technology company Forest Neurotech and medical imaging company Butterfly Network have reached a cooperation on the development of this minimally invasive ultrasound brain-computer interface device.

In terms of developing brain-computer interfaces, Musk's Neuralink, Paradromics and Synchron and other companies are all working hard to "electrically" interact with the brain

In comparison, ultrasound-based brain-computer interfaces What are the advantages of interfaces?

The "wound" is smaller and the spatial positioning is more accurate

According to reports, traditional brain electrical stimulation technology is highly restricted in space due to the limited propagation distance of current in brain tissue. According to the above, traditional brain electrical stimulation technology is greatly restricted in space due to the limited distance that electric current propagates in brain tissue. Therefore, when stimulating deep areas of the brain, it is necessary to invade through

Sexual Surgery

Place electrodes in relevant locations. And simply installing deep implants or electrodes in the skull can only record neural activity in superficial areas of the brain. To this end, the development team stated that it is developing a minimally invasive ultrasound implant. It only needs to be implanted into the user's skull and placed on the surface of the brain to use ultrasound to flexibly stimulate and record specific areas of the brain. Neural activity, and the accuracy is

sub-millimeter level

.

Specifically, Butterfly Network provides ultrasound chip hardware support, and Forest Neurotech uses these ultrasound chips to stimulate specific areas of the brain through guided and focused ultrasound waves.

Next, use functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI), a neuroimaging technology, to monitor neural activity

The principle of fUSI is also very simple:

Like all cells, neurons require blood to function, and an increase in the "activity" of neurons means that the blood flow supply required by the brain also increases.

fUSI uses ultrasound to detect small changes in blood flow in the brain to infer the activity level of neurons

The specific method is to emit ultrasound waves to a certain area of ​​the brain and then detect its "echo" ( That is, reflected waves affected by blood flow) to achieve

Since blood will cause the "Doppler effect" when it moves, it will slightly affect the vibration frequency of the echo.

By analyzing changes in echo frequency, the fUSI system can infer changes in blood flow velocity, thereby inferring neural activity in the area

Company Profile

It is reported that this The first ultrasound brain-computer interface device will be jointly developed by Forest Neurotech and Butterfly Network.

Forest Neurotech

is a non-profit organization just established in January this year, focusing on the development of minimally invasive ultrasound brain-computer interfaces. The co-founders are Sumner L. Norman, Tyson Aflalo, and William Biederman.

The fUSI technology mentioned above is a research that CEO Sumner L. Norman recently participated in.

In addition, Forest Neurotech is a subsidiary of Convergent Research, which is a scientific non-profit incubator and a member of the Schmidt Futures Network. It was announced some time ago that it has received 5,000 $10,000 in new philanthropic support.

Butterfly Network

is a medical imaging unicorn company founded in 2011 by Jonathan Rothberg, known as the "Jobs of biotechnology." Butterfly Network previously developed Butterfly iQ, the first handheld single-probe whole-body ultrasound system built using ultrasound chip technology

Currently, Forest Neurotech has reached a 5-year joint development agreement with Butterfly Network , Forest will pay US$20 million to purchase Butterfly ultrasound chips and services.

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