I can extract side effects.

Chapter 601 Brain, from output to input

In a spacious conference room, Chen Yiqing smiled and talked with the members of the project team.

"The test with one hand was very successful. The brain-computer interface can collect his action intentions, convert them into specific neural patterns, and guide the prosthesis to make various actions."

"At the same time, our algorithm is constantly learning his ideas and optimizing them."

"The more he trains on the BCI, the more athletic and fine-tuned his prosthetic will be, just like you can get better at ping pong with more practice."

"But—" he changed his voice and sighed.

"This is probably the limit of what we can do with paraplegics."

Wang Dali said in surprise: "Is this the limit? I feel like I haven't reached my limit yet?"

He gushed: "We've just made one bionic arm, just a very simple one-handed model, and we can go on to make two bionic arms, so that patients can use two hands like normal people."

"Of course, I think that if both hands are placed on a wheelchair, it may not be flexible enough. It should be made into an exoskeleton breastplate, so that the patient's mind can be used to work with both hands. In this case, it is as good as a real arm. There is no difference."

"Besides, I think it would be nice to make a full-body exoskeleton mech. As long as a paralyzed patient is stuffed into it, the mech can be manipulated to walk, work, and even hug your relatives."

Chen Yiqing chuckled, and said, "Da Dali, your ideals are full, but the reality is very skinny."

"Our current brain-computer interface is based on visual behavioral feedback, that is, patients can only receive information input by looking at it."

"If you can't see it, you don't know the feedback, you don't know what the outcome of the action will be, and you don't know how to proceed."

"For example, if you are asked to pick up a glass of water on the table, ordinary people can feel around on the table even if they close their eyes, and finally touch the glass."

"Because each of your fingertips and every inch of skin on your hands are covered with dense pressure sensors, you can touch uneven or smooth desktops, you can also touch the obstacles above, and then touch them out shape, fed everything back to the computer, and concluded, oh, I touched a cup on the table.”

"Not only that, but you can feel the shape and material of the cup, as well as its weight."

"As long as you touch it lightly, you will know whether the cup is solid porcelain, or a paper cup that is easily deformed, or even a stainless steel cup that can be dropped casually. You can also feel the temperature from the wall of the cup, whether it is warm water, hot water, Still ice water."

"When all this information comes together, you already know all the relevant information about the cup, and you will take different actions depending on the situation. If it is a paper cup, you will be careful and not push too much. If it is hot water, you will try to use it. The handle, you don’t hold it directly, but if it’s cold water, you just hold the cup directly.”

"The moment you pick up the cup with your eyes closed, your hand feeds you countless information, and your brain is like a supercomputer, based on all the information it receives, it gives the best solution for holding the cup. "

"However, all of this is based on the feedback of information."

"Without that feedback, your brain is blind and unable to make any effective decisions."

"Think about what it would look like if your hands lost their sense of touch and could only be fed back through vision."

"You look at the cup and know it is a paper cup full of water, then you must be careful, you will try the smallest force first, to see if the paper cup will deform, if the smallest force will deform, you may would give up on picking it up."

"If there is no problem with the strength, ok, you can use this strength to lift it up. At the same time, keep your eyes fixed on the cup, and don't dare to be careless in the slightest, for fear that if you become unstable, the water in the cup will overflow."

"The whole process, your eyes have to be on the cup, your brain can't be distracted, you can only focus on this one thing."

"Once you look away from the glass, you lose control of the glass."

"Maybe your strength will increase in the next second, the cup will be squeezed out of shape, and the water will spill out."

"Or the next second your hand touches something else, the hand is safe, but the cup falls."

"That's what happens without feedback, you can't react quickly, you can't adjust in real time, you can't control this thing."

Unconvinced, Wang Dali asked back: "Then if we add a pressure sensor to the bionic arm, what about other sensors?"

Chen Yiqing smiled slightly: "This is a very good question."

"However, it is a pity that our brain-computer interface can only output information at present, but cannot input information."

"Don't worry, listen to me slowly. This is related to the way of brain-computer interface. Currently, only invasive brain-computer interface can input information to the brain."

"Non-invasive brain-computer interfaces, including the one we use, can only output information."

"The main reason is that the brain is so complex that it's not the same place that controls movement and perceives it."

"The brain controls movement through the motor cortex, but there are several cortices that perceive movement."

"Visual feedback is a function of the motor cortex, while tactile feedback is a function of the sensory cortex."

"Not only that, but when it comes to the coordination of the hands, things get more complicated."

"Because the brain has a dedicated control cortex for one side of the body, the right sensory cortex primarily controls the left side of the body, and the left sensory cortex controls the right side of the body."

"While we can decode or control a limb to make simple movements from either side of the brain, for complex tasks that require simultaneous coordinated movement of both hands, such as cutting food, both sides of the brain are used."

"In this way, the input of information to the brain becomes more difficult."

"Only by putting the corresponding brain sensory cortex into the electrode sensor can the feedback from the prosthesis be converted into electrical impulses and sent to the brain's nerve tissue, allowing the brain to know what the cup feels like to the touch."

"It's just a haptic feedback."

"Think about it, if you want to input olfactory, auditory, visual, etc. information to the brain, how many operations will be performed on the brain? How many microelectrodes will be implanted?"

"Do you think our patients can accept such a change? Do you think the hospital can agree?"

As soon as these words came out, Wang Dali fell silent.

After a while, he smiled bitterly and said, "Then it's better to transform the monkey's brain and create a 3D virtual monkey mountain for the monkey."

"I finally understand why things like Planet of the Apes happen to gorillas."

Chen Yiqing waved his hand and said: "The human brain is like a big lump of milk jelly. It is easy to implant microelectrodes, but it is also easy to be injured. If you put a lot of things in, brain tissue damage and infection are inevitable. No one can do this." There is no way to take responsibility."

"So, before there is a breakthrough in material technology, there is no need to count on virtual reality."

"However, you don't have to be discouraged." A sly smile appeared on Chen Yiqing's face.

"Although we can't directly output crazy information to the brain, we can input information to the brain indirectly."

"Oh, Director Chen, can you explain this once and for all." Wang Dali couldn't help complaining.

"Where did you come from the problem of half-talking, this style is not popular in our company."

The smile on Chen Yiqing's face froze, and he almost lost control of his expression.

He usually gives too many lectures to his employees and children, and he has long been accustomed to this persuasive, slow-talking way of speaking. He never expected that he would be somewhat incompatible with Wang Dali, who likes to be straightforward.

Quickly coughed twice, and said bluntly.

"Dali, in fact, the largest user group of bionic arms is still the disabled. These patients have no problems with other parts of the body, and the nervous system is also fine, just missing arms and legs."

"You're right, we can put a lot of pressure sensors on the prosthetics to communicate the tactile feedback to the patient's nervous system, which then feeds the brain."

"In this way, the neurofeedback pathway from the brain to the prosthesis can be reconstructed, and the prosthesis can be perfectly controlled through nerve electrical impulses, so as to achieve the effect of real ones."

Wang Dali suddenly became excited: "Great, this is the project that will allow me to flex my muscles."

Wen Renlong couldn't help but interjected: "So the brain-computer interface project is not going to be done? Just give up like this?"

"Old Chen, I never expected that you are also a person who gives up when encountering difficulties. It is really disappointing."

If someone else said this kind of thing, the corners of Chen Yichen's mouth twitched early in the morning. Although he would not slap the table and curse, he still had to fight back.

But Wen Renlong said this kind of thing, he has long been used to it, and his tone did not change at all, as if he hadn't heard it, he explained with a smile.

"Aaron, it's not that I won't do it, but a strategic shift."

"As you can see, non-invasive brain-computer interfaces can only do so far."

"Our brain-computer project has achieved very good results, and the product is also very successful, but we have encountered insurmountable difficulties, so we need to do some side tasks first."

"When the conditions are ripe, we will continue to do it."

"This is scientific research. You never expect to encounter difficulties and problems. Only when you encounter them can you deal with them."

"But don't worry, I will not give up on these paralyzed patients. I will continue my research in the field of neurology, and strive to find a more effective way to treat their diseases as soon as possible."

"At least for now, the lives of patients have been greatly improved. They can do rehabilitation training and continue to improve their physical condition."

Wen Renlong just nodded and said no more.

Wang Dali asked curiously: "Chen Bo, why don't we make exoskeleton robots for rehabilitation?"

Chen Yiqing shook his head, and answered crisply: "I'm not interested, if you are interested, you can do it yourself."

"This..." Wang Dali choked suddenly.

He suddenly remembered that the directors of Sanqing did projects based on their interests, except for what the boss personally explained.

Do it if you are interested, don't do it if you are not interested, whether it makes money or not, and how much money it can make, it has nothing to do with them.

The main character is free and unrestrained, relying on a strong internal drive to pursue dreams.

Of course, cost and efficiency still need to be taken care of, which is responsible for oneself and part of the success of the project.

But the bigwigs in Sanqing are tempered and have their own little persistence.

They are by no means the wild dogs in Vanity Fair, who swarm up to grab a piece of fat when they see a piece of fat.

Lao Chen usually looks like a gentle and good man, and has success in the worldly sense. He works step by step every day, which seems too reliable.

This makes it easy for people to misunderstand and ignore the stubbornness hidden in his heart.

But deep down, he and Wen Renlong are actually the same kind of people.

Sanqing people with free souls.

Wang Dali smiled bluntly, remembering that he was also a free and unrestrained Sanqing, he immediately felt comfortable.

He chuckled: "Chen Bo, from what you said, I'm actually not interested. Rehabilitation robots can't be stimulated by surgical robots and bionic prosthetics. I can't just wrap up the robot market by myself."

Chen Yiqing nodded, didn't care too much, and continued: "The robot is up to you."

"The preliminary plan is to establish a two-way neural-machine interface function, allowing patients to establish a neural pathway from the brain to the prosthetic through their own nervous system, which can not only drive the prosthetic to make real hand movements, but also send feedback signals along the Nerves send back to the brain."

"In this way, they make judgments, decisions, calculations and adjustments when using it, like a non-amputated person, and they use this prosthesis as they would use their lost natural hand."

"Typically, these kinds of related brain behaviors are very different between people with and without prosthetics, and I can also do research on the brain at the same time, get a little insight into the neural signals and the activity of the cerebral cortex, maybe It will inspire the development of non-invasive brain-computer interface."

"The specific plan is as follows. First, we need to add a large number of sensors to the prosthesis, including pressure sensors and motion sensors, etc., and then summarize the feedback information of the sensors and convert them into nerve electrical pulse signals. This requires a nerve- machine interface."

"Secondly, do an operation to connect the patient's upper limb nerves to the nerve-machine interface, so that the actions and feedback of the prosthetic limb can pass through the nervous system and feed back to the brain, reconstructing the motor nervous system and sensory nerve distribution of the missing limb."

"It sounds very complicated, so it requires the joint efforts of the entire team. I hope everyone can continue to work hard."

"Crack, clap!" Wang Dali clapped his hands, "It sounds great. I'm very much looking forward to the day when the disabled can use the prosthetics I made with my own hands."

"By the way, I suggest that after finishing the bionic arm, you should continue to make the bionic leg. What do you think, Chen Bo?"

Chen Yiqing cast an approving look: "This is all in the plan, you can just do it with confidence."

Wen Renlong also expressed his high recognition: "Old Chen, this project is exciting. If it is realized, it will definitely change the world. I feel very honored to be able to join such a project."

As soon as these words came out, everyone immediately looked sideways.

Everyone turned their heads in unison, looking at him with strange eyes, as if trying to figure out what was wrong with him.

Wen Renlong glared, and said angrily, "What are you looking at? Actually, I'm normal."

"Ah, yes, yes, you are normal."

Everyone said in unison, and they all breathed a sigh of relief.

Sure enough, it still smells familiar.

It's boring to hear people's attention when it's normal.

It's better to be abnormal, as a life adjustment, you have to have both ups and downs, and this is enough.

(End of this chapter)