Device helps disabled move just by thinking

Rahmat Shoureshi, the recipient of $300,000 in research funding from the National Science Foundation, wears a prototype of his brain-imaging scanner.

Shoureshi found inspiration in the real "Six Million Dollar Man."

A locally developed technology targeting people who have lost their arms has its roots in a hush-hush Pentagon project and the 1970s hit TV show The Six Million Dollar Man.

In the show, severely injured test pilot Steve Austin was surgically rebuilt with bionic limbs and implants that allowed him to run 60 miles an hour and serve as a secret agent.

University of Denver professor Rahmat Shoureshi, who worked on a real "Six Million Dollar Man" semisecret Pentagon project, is turning that science fiction into reality, at least in part.

His brain-imaging technology - which is worn on the head - won't ensure that anyone will turn into an Olympic sprinter or a bionic man.

But it could allow a U.S. soldier who's lost an arm in combat to move his motorised artificial limb by simply thinking about the movement.

The National Science Foundation goes further, saying Shoureshi's work could improve "the quality of life for millions of disabled individuals."

The NSF has given Shoureshi nearly $300,000 in research funding.

"What we are trying to do is develop systems that allow individuals who have physical disabilities and have prosthetic devices to be able to directly control those with a natural motion," said Shoureshi, dean of DU's School of Engineering and Computer Science.

The device is basically a scanner. It's worn much like headphones and relies on light waves to read a person's brain activity. It does so by measuring the changes in the amount of oxygen contained in the brain's red blood cells.

For a patient wearing the device, the scanner's light waves would "read" activity in carefully mapped areas of the brain - in particular, those linked to muscle groups such as in the elbow and wrist.

"The brain imager identifies the muscle groups being activated in the brain and, in turn, activates those same muscle groups in the artificial limb," said Chris Aasted, an engineering graduate student at DU who's been working with Shoureshi.

The brain imager stimulates a robotic limb by sending the motor in the limb an electronic signal.

A user with a prosthetic arm could manipulate that arm by thinking about the action - such as lifting a book or a fork.

For now, Shoureshi is focusing on the upper half of the body, primarily arms, but the technology ultimately could be used elsewhere, such as the legs.

Shih-Chi Liu, a program director at the NSF, said in an e-mail that Shoureshi's research "is original and innovative."

"The expected outcome of the direct brain control system research has a potential to improve the quality of life for millions of disabled individuals," Liu wrote.

In announcing the grant, the NSF said Shoureshi's work would "pioneer" a new field of research and development and could serve as a catalyst for new biomedical devices and startup tech companies.

About 1.9 million people in the United States suffer from the loss of a limb, according to data cited by the nonprofit Amputee Coalition of America.

The nonprofit estimates that one of every 200 people in the U.S. has undergone an amputation.

Surgery or other invasive procedures wouldn't be necessary for someone who wants to use Shoureshi's technology. The brain-imaging scanner would sit on the head and work with a motorized artificial limb that has been strapped to the body.

"It will be a very inexpensive system compared to medical devices currently on the market," Shoureshi said.

Without detailing a price tag, Shoureshi said it would cost far less than a magneto-encephalography scanner scientists are using to study key details about emotions, epilepsy, brain tumors and more. Those machines can cost about $2 million.

As part of Shoureshi's research, test subjects have been wearing the prototype scanner. Shoureshi plans to shrink the prototype into a less obtrusive band.

"The goal is to bring it to that level within a year," he said. In two years, he hopes to launch a commercial version.

Shoureshi's research has roots in The Six Million Dollar Man and a semisecret Pentagon project. In 2000, Shoureshi was doing research for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a Pentagon agency.

"The goal was to make soldiers have the ability of the Six Million Dollar Man," he said.

How? A soldier fitted with an artificial skeleton worn outside the body - or an "exoskeleton" - would be able to run for miles without tiring. A special system would read the soldier's mind and transmit movement commands from there to the exoskeleton.

A light bulb went on in Shoureshi's own mind. Why not apply the same principle of transmitting movement commands to a larger group of people - namely, the disabled?

"When we saw this ability we realized this was needed for the regular public," he said.

How it works

* What: Brain-imaging scanner

* What it does: Allows a person without an arm to move his or her motorized artificial limb simply by thinking about the movement.

* How it functions: Relies on light waves to read a person's brain activity.

* Key detail: Surgery isn't required to use the technology, which is worn on the head, much like headphones.

* Cost: Not released

Source - Rocky Mountain News

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