A fatigue detection device for drivers based on eye tracking

An EPFL student, Peugeot Citroën, has developed a video analysis algorithm able to estimate the level of a driver’s fatigue based on the degree of eyelid closure and has built a prototype to test it in real driving conditions.

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The future of gaming - using neurophysiological signals

Gaming as a hobby evokes images of lethargic teenagers huddled over their controllers, submerged in their couch surrounded by candy bar wrappers. This image should soon hit the reset button since a more exciting version of gaming is coming. It's called neurogaming, and it's riding on the heels of some exponential technologies that are converging on each other

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Dust sized brain implants

In a potential neuroscience breakthrough, University of California Berkeley scientists have proposed a system that allows for thousands of ultra-tiny “neural dust” chips to be inserted into the brain to monitor neural signals at high resolution and communicate data highly efficiently via ultrasound.

The neural dust design promises to overcome a serious limitation of current invasive brain-machine interfaces (BMI): the lack of an implantable neural interface system that remains viable for
a lifetime. Current BMI systems are also limited to several hundred implantable recording sites, they generate tissue responses around the implanted electrodes  that degrade recording performance over time, and are limited to months to a few years.

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Seeing How Your Brain Works in Real-time Helps to Improve It

In an experiment involving twenty volunteers with contamination anxiety, researchers from Yale University tested whether real-time neurofeedback can induce lasting changes in brain activity. Contamination anxiety is related to hyperactivity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a region of the brain thought to be involved in mood control and decision making. Showing the volunteers the activity in their OFC in a line-graph helped them to control their brain patterns. After eight sessions spread out over several days the volunteers reported a greater control over their anxiety and scans of their brain showed a corresponding decrease in connectivity in the regions associated with emotions.

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Growing new brains with infrared light

University of Texas Arlington scientists have discovered a way to control the growth or repair of neurons and neuron circuits, using a non-invasive “neuronal beacon” (near-IR laser beam) — essentially rewiring brains, or even creating new ones.

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Cognitive enhancement with electrical current

A new study suggests that a gentle, painless electrical current applied to the brain can boost math performance for up to 6 months. Researchers don't fully understand how it works, however, and there could be side effects.

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Training the brain to improve on new tasks

A brain-training task that increases the number of items an individual can remember over a short period of time may boost performance in other problem-solving tasks by enhancing communication between different brain areas. The new study is one of a growing number of experiments on how working-memory training can measurably improve a range of skills — from multiplying in your head to reading a complex paragraph.

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Samsung tests Brain Computer Interfacing

Samsung is researching how to bring mind control to its mobile devices with the hope of developing ways for people with mobility impairments to connect to the world, MIT Technology Review reports. In collaboration with Roozbeh Jafari, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas, Dallas, Samsung researchers are testing how people can use their thoughts to launch an application, select a contact, select a song from a playlist, or power up or down a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.In their demonstration, the researchers found that people could launch an application and make selections within it by concentrating on an icon that was blinking at a distinctive frequency.

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Injectable Optoelectronics for Brain Control

Photo: University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and
Washington University-St. Louis

A flexible system that includes electrodes, LEDs, photodetectors, and a temperature sensor were designed to be implanted in an animal’s brain and wirelessly controlled via an RF receiver affixed to the animal’s skull.

Optogenetics, a recently developed technique that uses light to map and control brain activity, requires the genetic modification of an animal’s brain cells and the insertion of optical fibers and electrical wire into its brain. The bulky wires and fibers emerge from the skull, hampering the animal’s movement and making it difficult to perform certain experiments that could lead to breakthroughs for Parkinson’s disease, addiction, depression, and spinal cord injuries.

But now, a new ultrathin, flexible device laden with light-emitting diodes and sensors, both the size of individual brain cells, promises to make optogenetics completely wireless. The 20-micrometer-thick device can be safely injected deep into the brain and controlled and powered using radio-frequency signals. Its developers say the technology could also be used in other parts of the body, with broad implications for medical diagnosis and therapy.

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Easing brain fatigue with a walk in the park

Scientists have known for some time that the human brain’s ability to stay calm and focused is limited and can be overwhelmed by the constant noise and hectic, jangling demands of city living, sometimes resulting in a condition informally known as brain fatigue.


Researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh attached new, portable EEG electrodes to the scalps of 12 healthy young adults, connected to a laptops carried in a backpack for each volunteer, then sent each volunteer out on a short walk of about a mile and half that wound through three different sections of Edinburgh: a historic shopping district, a busy commercial district, and a park-like setting. What they found confirmed the idea that green spaces lessen brain fatigue.

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