By PRINCE PATEL

Special to The Press

Parents often quip that their children have become so engrossed with their phones that they have become a part of them.

Quick to deny the claim, we seldom stop to think of the futuristic possibility in which our devices actually become an extension of ourselves.

While parents might be exaggerating at the moment, we are not so far from a future in which they would be completely accurate.

Neuroscientists around the world have embarked on the journey to develop brain-machine interfaces.

BMIs have many potential uses, but they all serve a common purpose: to bridge the gap between man and machine.

New Hope for Amputees

At Johns Hopkins University, Buz Chmielewski pushes the frontier of BMIs by testing out the new devices on himself.

Chmielewski suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down, so he lost much of his freedom and must rely on help for every little task.

With a BMI, he can perform these tasks using robotic arms that operate much as his own did.

According to the Amputee Coalition, nearly 2 million people in the United States alone suffer from limb loss, and amputations occur approximately every 30 seconds worldwide.

Joshua Fleck from the MAHI lab at Rice University explains: “A lot of people have amputated limbs [and] they lose a lot of functionality from that, [so] anything we can do to improve their quality of life, and their ability to use these prosthetic limbs, is going to be beneficial both for them and for society.” (J. Fleck, personal communication, July 16, 2021).

Electrical Conversations

Neurons, the primary cells in our brain, communicate in a simple yet undoubtedly complex way through a combination of electric currents and small packages of chemicals.

When a neuron is “excited” by a stimulus, a flow of electrically charged particles across the neuron’s membrane generates an electric current, releasing chemicals to stimulate the next neuron.

It is essentially a line of dominoes, so once a stimulus tips over the first neuron, the process ends with an output.

The billions of neurons in our brain store information, perceive our environment, and respond to stimuli with that seemingly simple electrochemical method.

While neuroscientists haven’t been able to find much more detail than that, it is all we need for our discussion of BMIs.

Humans harnessed electricity’s power centuries ago, but its uses have grown exponentially in the past decades.

Neuroscientists also jumped on the trend by developing tiny electrodes that can artificially stimulate neurons, forcing them to communicate.

Electrodes are pieces of metal that efficiently conduct electricity, often connected to a source of power or a measuring device.

It is on this electric principle that BMIs operate.

The Magic Behind BMIs

Neuroscientists have studied the brain and neurons for centuries.

However, most of their work has been theoretical or based upon loose claims.

More recently, new imaging technologies have allowed for advances in the field.

Imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging use a strong magnetic field to reveal the larger structures of the brain.

The fMRI goes a step further by tracking the blood flow to indicate which parts of the brain are active when performing certain functions.

Armed with this technology, neuroscientists separated the brain into regions that each perform different functions, slowly clearing a path in the dense forest of our mysterious minds.

The “interface” in BMIs can be a software program or physical like a prosthetic.

First, an electrode, typically a multi-electrode array is placed either in or on the brain to measure electric signals between neurons.

Let’s revisit Buz at JHU, where scientists implanted an MEA in his head, so when the MEA picks up activity in a part of his brain, it sends a message to a computer that forwards it to the robotic arms.

The whole process is practically simultaneous; an extraordinary feat most would consider magical.

Beyond Control

While some neuroscience labs, such as Buz’s at JHU, are concerned with connecting prosthetics or software to enhance or restore a person’s abilities to move and operate, others realized the necessity for sensory feedback. Without the sensation of touch or motion, operating a prosthetic can seem clumsy and unnatural.

The Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces lab at Rice University is tackling this obstacle.

They use haptic feedback that allows the user to better recognize what the prosthetic is doing without looking at it.

Haptic feedback uses “an output,” typically a vibration, to communicate with another body part to create specific prosthetic movements.

For example, a band around the user’s non-amputated forearm may tighten when the prosthetic hand closes.

With variations coding for numerous prosthetic states, the user can feel genuinely immersed while using the prosthetic.

The New Force

When I first watched Star Wars in middle school, much later than most kids did, I was fascinated by the made-up magical Force.

The Force gave the Jedi some insane powers, my favorite being telekinesis.

To my mother’s dismay, I spent the next week trying to move things with my mind, concentrating energetically.

As expected, I couldn’t even make a napkin flutter unless the wind gave me an assist.

Years later, learning about BMIs renewed the child inside me as people such as Buz Chmielewski push the limits on BMI’s capabilities.

“The Force” could become reality as we could soon move objects with merely our thoughts -assuming we connected them to a BMI.

Of course, restoring the abilities of people who have paralysis or some other medical condition should be the priority, but I wouldn’t mind experiencing the world of Star Wars and using the Force someday.

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Editor’s note: Prince Patel is a senior at Parkland High School. Last summer, he was accepted into the STEM summer program, MOSTEC, at MIT for underrepresented minorities. For one of his classes, Patel wrote an article about a science topic of professional caliber. At the end of the program, his article was selected from more than 200 to be published on the MOSTEC website.