Last Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that brain-computer interfaces could solve the biggest bottleneck in human progress. Musk is known to have launched the Neuralink in 2016. He believes the company’s technology can help humans achieve “symbiosis” with artificial intelligence. Simply put, people will be able to combine their brains with computers.
When it comes to brain-computer interfaces, the first impression may be that Musk makes monkeys “mind-type.” Since then, Musk’s Neuralink has been developing brain implants designed to treat diseases such as paralysis and blindness. Recently, however, the Chinese team was surprised.
The world’s first brain-computer interface test on monkeys was successfully conducted
Recently, the world’s first nonhuman primate interventional brain-computer interface test has been successful in Beijing, which is of great significance to promoting the field of brain science research, marking China’s brain-computer interface technology among the international leading ranks.
The experiment was led by Professor Duan Feng’s team from Nankai University and jointly completed with the General Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army (301 Hospital) and Shanghai Xinwei Medical Technology Co., Ltd., which broke through core technologies such as endovascular EEG signal acquisition and interventional EEG signal recognition. According to the video, the surgical monkey just needs to “think” to bring the food to the imports.
This technology has been widely used in medical, military, and other fields, such as it can help patients with stroke and ALS recover, and even store human thinking, consciousness, and memory in the future. This series of very magical results have begun to happen. It seems that some scenes in sci-fi blockbusters are not so far away from us.
Brain-computer interface refers to a direct connection between the brain of a human or animal and an external device to exchange information between the brain and the device. At present, there are mainly three kinds of BCI, invasive, non-invasive, and interventional BCI. Neuralink, founded by “Iron Man of Silicon Valley” Musk and a team of scientists, is one of the few companies that develop invasive brain-computer interfaces.
In contrast, the interventional brain-computer interface technology used in China is safer. According to information released by Nankai University, the team sent interventional EEG sensors through the singular vein into the sagittal sinus and the motor cortex brain region. After surgery, the team successfully collected and identified the non-human primate interventional EEG signals, realizing the active control of the robotic arm.
It can be said that the interventional brain-computer interface takes both intrusive and non-invasive strengths while avoiding the shortcomings of both. From the current development, brain-computer interface technology has made breakthroughs, which may first help to the medical industry. Guotai Junan Securities pointed out that medicine and health is the main application scenario of brain-computer, and the future will gradually penetrate entertainment, smart home, and other fields, and become an important form of human-computer interaction.
Brain-computer interface technology will enable the metaverse
Brain-computer interface is a complex system and a basic tool for reading and writing on dynamic network data of neurons. What is more surprising is that, with the sudden rise of the Metaverse, people have great expectations for the integration and interaction of the virtual world and the real world. Many people in the industry believe that the brain-computer interface is the cutting-edge technology hatched by Metaverse.
In the future, brain-computer interface technology will enable Metaverse, and the brain-computer interface is expected to become the next generation of human-computer interaction technology, the ultimate form of Metaverse. At the same time, with the continuous development of Metaverse in the future, the strong support of national policies, as well as the continuous exploration of brain science, the brain-computer interface will become the next generation of Metaverse entrance after VR and AR, realizing the real Metaverse.
According to the White paper on brain-computer Interface standardization released by the China Institute of Electronic Technology Standardization, the potential market for brain-computer interface technology (Brain-Computer Interface, BCI) will soon reach tens of billions of yuan. Another prediction analysis believes that the brain-computer interface in the next 20-30 years, the commercial application will gradually land, will open a 100 billion dollars of market.
The technical race has already begun. Brain-computer interface technology is an important strategic direction of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. The future industry represented by the brain-computer interface has stepped into the fast lane, and the formation of breakthrough scientific research achievements and innovative applications is the strategic need for innovative development.
WiMi Hologram Cloud focuses on brain-computer interface achievements
At present, the brain-computer interface field has tried to combine technology in the consumer field, and the application of in-game interaction is becoming more and more popular. It is understood that WiMi Hologram Cloud (NASDAQ: WIMI) has started to develop BCI game models and paradigms based on brain-computer interfaces. The game model was designed with a P300 brain-computer interface to explore a feasible and natural game execution experience using electroencephalography (EEG) signals in a practical environment.
According to the report, the novelty of the WiMi Hologram Cloud study is reflected in the design of the BCI games and the paradigm, which integrates the rules of the game and the characteristics of the BCI system. In addition, the convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm is introduced to achieve high accuracy on the training samples. This brain-computer interface system not only provides a form of entertainment but also provides more possibilities for game control.
To be sure, WiMi Hologram Cloud is based on the CNN BCI game model, forming a platform that can meet the interests of both healthy and disabled users. For healthy users, brain-computer interface games are mysterious and technical, which increases the charm of the game and is very conducive to the promotion of the game. For users with disabilities, BCI games provide them with a fair gaming platform, not only allowing them to play games with healthy users in the same way but also as a functional rehabilitation system to help patients with rehabilitation training. WiMi Hologram Cloud’s application of brain-computer interface technology to entertainment games is an important part of promoting BCI technology from the scientific research stage to the practical application market stage.
Conclusion
On the whole, although the new achievements of brain-computer interface technology in China have attracted global attention, it needs to be admitted that at present, the research perspective of foreign brain-computer interface technology is more advanced than that in China, and there can be some technological breakthroughs from 0 to 1. However, the advantages of China are more reflected in the range from 1 to 10, that is, domestic enterprises are good at learning from overseas innovative ideas, making better improvements and engineering realization of products, and pushing the products to the clinic more quickly. In short, if you want to catch up, and eventually lead the industry trend, the core point must also be to increase the investment in basic scientific research.
