How thoughts can control a flying robot
It’s a staple of science fiction: people who can control objects with their minds.
At the University of Minnesota, a new technology is turning that fiction into reality.
In the lab of biomedical engineering professor Bin He, several young people have learned to use their thoughts to steer a flying robot around a gym, making it turn, rise, dip, and even sail through a ring. (more…)
*Electrical signals can’t shut off, suggest UCLA researchers*
Most of us know what it means when it’s said that someone is depressed. But commonly, true clinical depression brings with it a number of other symptoms. These can include anxiety, poor attention and concentration, memory issues, and sleep disturbances.
Traditionally, depression researchers have sought to identify the individual brain areas responsible for causing these symptoms. But the combination of so many symptoms suggested to UCLA researchers that the multiple symptoms of depression may be linked to a malfunction involving brain networks — the connections that link different brain regions. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A paralyzed patient may someday be able to “think” a foot into flexing or a leg into moving, using technology that harnesses the power of electricity in the brain, and scientists at University of Michigan School of Kinesiology are now one big step closer.
Researchers at the school and colleagues from the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego have developed technology that for the first time allows doctors and scientists to noninvasively isolate and measure electrical brain activity in moving people. (more…)
