[HN Gopher] DIY Neurotech: Making BCI open-source thrusts brain-...
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DIY Neurotech: Making BCI open-source thrusts brain-signal into a
maker's world
Author : Marat_1975_
Score : 83 points
Date : 2023-04-19 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Did anyone listen in to OpenBCIs TED talk today? What was their
| demo about?
| pedalpete wrote:
| I haven't seen it yet, but they've been working on a big
| project in BCI + VR, so I'm assuming that's mostly what it was
| about.
|
| Our team used to work in metaverse tech, and now we work in BCI
| (for sleep), so I'm have some experience with both areas.
| codetrotter wrote:
| I was looking at brain wave (EEG) sensors on AliExpress recently.
| But I couldn't tell if spending hundreds plus euros on those
| sensors would be worth it or not.. so for now I did not order any
| of them
|
| Also I am a little bit afraid that some of those EEG devices on
| AliExpress could accidentally fry my brain so there's that as
| well..
| mcshicks wrote:
| You might consider trying a muse 2. I bought one used on eBay
| for $125. There is a very good app mind monitor you can see
| what's going on quickly and get captures and python options
| like muse-lsl for doing your own capture and analysis.
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| As far as I know, surface EEG is almost useful in terms of
| controlling anything. It can even be quite hard not to make the
| software cheat and work with the much stronger and easier to
| control signals from muscles.
|
| Stuff like that is useful for neurofeedback, however. I haven't
| tried the newer models of the Mindwave headset, but the older
| ones were easy to interface with over bluetooth. That's a place I
| might start rather than building a custom electronics board.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I wonder how long it will be before something like this can
| interface with the brain with electrodes that go into the brain
| (like Neuralink) instead of on the surface?
|
| Then 'all' we need is a plugin for Obsidian.
| meindnoch wrote:
| As soon as we figure out how to prevent fatal brain infections
| occurring from foreign bodies embedded into your skull!
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| Is that actually an issue with current technology? Other
| implants, like bone replacements or simple screws for
| orthosynthesis, have higher sterility requirements than a
| brain implant might have, given that the brain has an easier
| time fighting infections. And they wouldn't usually implant
| the electrodes inside the brain but rather on the surface but
| below the skull.
|
| And it's not completely necessary to have a physical
| connection to the outside. Again, I'm not sure what the
| current generation of BCI implants are doing, but technically
| it should be possible to completely close the wound (which
| may "only" be a small hole drilled into the skull), then use
| wireless transmission of power and information. Maybe that's
| not convenient enough right now to get the amount of data
| required, but it's more than theoretically possible.
| therein wrote:
| Brain is an immune privileged organ so it is the opposite
| of your intuition. Get an infection into the brain and it
| is done.
|
| > Immune-privileged sites include the central nervous
| system and brain, the eyes and the testes. Even foreign
| antigens accessing these tissues do not generally trigger
| immune responses.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-
| genetics-a....
| meindnoch wrote:
| No.
|
| Any type of foreign body is inaccessible to the immune
| system, therefore prone to harbor sources of chronic
| infections, like bacterial biofilms.
|
| "A significant proportion of medical implants become the
| focus of a device-related infection, difficult to eradicate
| because bacteria that cause these infections live in well-
| developed biofilms."
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16353112/
|
| No thanks, I don't want this anywhere near my central
| nervous system.
| toss1 wrote:
| >>brain has an easier time fighting infections [vs bones]
|
| While the brain has better blood supply than the hard outer
| parts of bones, which tends to accelerate healing, the
| brain also relies heavily on the blood-brain barrier to
| keep out many threats. Crossing the blood-brain barrier is
| a big deal, and we shouldn't assume automatically that
| it'll heal better.
|
| >>it's not completely necessary to have a physical
| connection to the outside INDEED! This is completely key,
| as having a continuous surface breaking to just under the
| skin is a huge infection problem that must be continually
| cleaned and monitored, and having one right into the brain
| is a truly scary high-risk proposition. So successfully
| encapsulating and sealing it behind the blood-brain barrier
| is essential.
|
| The problem is that this means wireless communication at a
| meaningful data rate, through the meninges encasing the
| brain, the scull, and scalp. This means power consumption,
| power supply, and necessary power supply replacement
| operations - into the brain, again.
|
| The biology side is not trivial, even as we advance the
| electronics side, but I'm very much looking forward to
| these hurdles being overcome!
| ccooffee wrote:
| > given that the brain has an easier time fighting
| infections [than bones]
|
| This doesn't match my understanding at all, but I'm not a
| medical professional. As far as I know, the brain relies
| heavily on isolation for protection. One function of the
| blood-brain barrier[0] is to prevent contamination of the
| central nervous system from pathogens and toxins. Bacterial
| meningitis is treatable with proper antibiotics, but still
| maintains a 10% mortality rate[1].
|
| Additionally, simple mechanical implants (e.g. plates,
| screws, replacement joints) don't require interfacing with
| the body. They are often made of solid metals which are not
| bioreactive (e.g. titanium) or coated with bioresistant
| polymers[2].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470351/
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthopedic_plate#Materials
| yummypaint wrote:
| This is a different technology that uses optical methods, but the
| ninja FNIRS project is very exciting and open source. They seem
| to have a solid and modular hardware design. I know someone who
| uses a commercial NIRS instrument in a clinical research setting
| and they said this open source system looks far more capable.
|
| https://openfnirs.org/hardware/ninjanirs/
| mhb wrote:
| Does it say anywhere on that web site WTF fNIRS is?
|
| "OpenfNIRS is driven by the community to support the community
| in the use of fNIRS."
|
| Edit: They sort of mention it, apparently en passant, on
| https://openfnirs.org/standards/:
|
| "Shared Near Infrared Spectroscopy Format (SNIRF) is designed
| by the community in an effort to facilitate sharing and
| analysis of NIRS data."
| pizza wrote:
| functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy, like fMRI
| flaviut wrote:
| This is a really bad idea. There's a direct conductive path
| between the power supply and the person. Knowing users, the PSU
| will be a $2 Shenzhen special wall wart rather than a battery
| pack.
|
| At least the other dev kits they compare themselves to have a
| prominent warning they should only be operated off battery.
| Arrath wrote:
| Sounds like Big OSHA trying to keep enterprising hackers from
| giving themselves electrical super powers.
| pedalpete wrote:
| Open-BCI has had their Ganglion board available for years, and it
| is also open-sourced hardware and software. It's more expensive
| than the PiEEG, but this probably isn't as new as the headline
| suggests.
|
| As discussed in a thread a few weeks ago, the hardware often
| isn't the challenging or expensive part of building a BCI system.
|
| Electrodes and a softgoods system to reliably hold them in place
| comfortably is a big challenge.
|
| The off the shelf pre-build components are expensive,
| uncomfortable, and/or unreliable (from our experience).
|
| We're building a sleep wearable EEG headband which monitors sleep
| state and uses auditory stimulation to increase deep sleep in
| realtime (https://soundmind.co).
|
| We started by working with the Open-BCI board. It was a good
| starting point, but once we tried to get it on our heads and
| sleep with it (not lying next to us on the bed), we needed to
| move to our own custom hardware.
|
| That was not a big challenge. A month after that decision, we had
| a custom board.
|
| But electrodes, and keeping electrodes in place, that's where the
| challenge is. Off the shelf stuff is either uncomfortable and
| expensive, or not of high enough quality to use in EEG.
|
| We've had to not only design our own electrodes, but also the
| system to hold them in place comfortably while sleeping.
|
| Many other BCI devices don't have the "sleeping" requirement, but
| it is still a PITA to get things going on an average users head.
|
| Emotiv (also a local Sydney, Australia company) has some great
| devices which can be easily used - but I don't think they give
| direct access to the data.
|
| By all means, people should play with the BCI tech, but just know
| that if you think you're going to buy a board, and use it in an
| environment where the person is not very still, you are going to
| run into lots of issues.
| spicybright wrote:
| So has have the market for raspis mellowed out yet?
|
| Last I checked the past few years made them near impossible to
| get as industrial orders got priority over hobbyists.
| mindcrime wrote:
| I think things are starting to improve, yes. If you look at
| rpilocator[1] now, you see a LOT more green in general than,
| say, a month ago. Now to be fair, a lot of it is for Pico
| boards and/or Pi 3 boards, but still, progress is progress. And
| this lines up with that they told us back in December[2] when
| the word was that the situation would start to improve sometime
| in Q2 2023 and that stocks (and prices) would reach normal
| levels sometime in the second half of 2023.
|
| I suspect that once enough supply hits that the scalpers start
| getting stuck with stock they can't resell at a premium, and
| turn off their bots, things will improve very quickly. Of
| course that's just my hunch. YMMV.
|
| Also, FWIW, there's no difficulty in getting a Pi 4 now. You
| only have to be willing to done one or the other of two things:
|
| 1. Pay an exorbitant price. If you're willing to buy from
| scalpers who scoop them up and resell them, you can buy an 8G
| Pi 4 right now on Amazon for the low, low price of $180.00.[3]
|
| OR
|
| 2. Be very patient. There are authorized resellers selling at
| MSRP who are taking backorders and who will ship you a board as
| soon as they get it (relative to your position in the queue). I
| believe both Mouser and Newark are taking backorders for most
| Pi models (and one or the other, or both, have some Picos and
| other low end boards in stock).
|
| The only real problem is if you want one RIGHT NOW and you want
| it as MSRP. And even then, if you watch rpilocator enough,
| you'll eventually catch a few in stock somewhere and be able to
| order one for immediate delivery. I understand that Adafruit
| receive stock fairly frequently (which unfortunately sells out
| very fast) but I've had luck getting Pi's from Elektor a couple
| of times in the past year. Or one could drive to the nearest
| Microcenter store that has stock, if you happen to live within
| reasonable driving distance of one of their stores.
|
| [1]: https://rpilocator.com/
|
| [2]: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/supply-chain-update-its-
| goo...
|
| [3]: https://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Pi-Computer-Suitable-
| Workst...
| jeron wrote:
| this has to be forecasting mismanagement at this point. The
| chip shortage has mostly come to an end, they're either
| severely underforecasting from incompetence or intentionally
| i-use-nixos-btw wrote:
| I don't even think it's a forecasting issue at this point.
| It's a lack of a plan B.
|
| In this time they could have launched new products that make
| the most of available supply. They didn't.
|
| They could have recognised the hit that their b2b-first
| distribution model has had on their reputation and tried to
| make amends. They didn't.
|
| They could have coordinated with the alt-board suppliers to
| make "RPi approved" models for the Rock Pi, Orange Pi etc as
| a stop gap. They didn't.
|
| Hell, they could have bumped costs up a bit to spend on
| mitigating supply issues, reduce demand and burn scalpers.
| They didn't.
|
| So instead they just keep promising, just keep delaying, and
| we keep waiting. Even if their supply issues are through no
| fault of their own, it feels like they aren't even trying.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| There's still shortages of a whole bunch of random parts
| (wireless chips, etc).
|
| Unsure if its actually impacting Pi manufacturing
| specifically, but its hit some other products I want.
| genpfault wrote:
| Doesn't look good[1].
|
| [1]: https://rpilocator.com/?country=US&cat=PI4
| Mark_Frenk wrote:
| how control robot toy with this device
| https://youtu.be/wNgCEKIXGUY
| charcircuit wrote:
| Sensing signals inside of the brain are much less exciting to me
| compare to writing signals via people's eye balls and ears or
| reading signals from people's various muscles.
|
| Measuring how "focused" or "stressed" someone is is too much of a
| gimmick to me.
| vasco wrote:
| You can do that from EEG. You usually get an API which exposes
| a number of wave "channels". Depending on the person, if you
| for example make your hand into a fist, you might get an
| isolated spike on one of the channels. When developing custom
| controls based on these signals it's difficult to find actions
| that will make a channel or combination of channels spike
| consistently, but you may end up with like, "press tongue to
| top of mouth" for yes, "make right hand into a fist" for no
| kinds of things.
|
| This is from some minor diy experimentation a few years ago,
| might be out of date.
| Mark_Frenk wrote:
| and sources https://github.com/HackerBCI/EEGwithRaspberryPI
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(page generated 2023-04-19 23:00 UTC)