First human brain linked to the internet in real time

[LauraBoop]

It may sound pompous, and I totally got lost in my imagination with this. The Wits biomedical engineers have connected a human brain to the internet. Long story short, it streams brainwaves to the web, by converting the brain into an Internet of Things (IoT) node on the World Wide Web. (more, here: http://insaneclopedia.com/1468/brainternet-project-first-human-brain-linked-internet-real-time/)

I feel like this is a huge step for machine learning and it will start getting a lot of interest.

Edited September 15, 2017 by LauraBoop

[jimmydasaint]

Hi Laura,

Slippery slope to mind control here, which I do not approve. If a person feels pain and it is registered as an EEG trace, there is no reason why it cannot be fed back to the patient to replicate the pain. What about a person experiencing sadness or anger a catalogue of EEG traces is linked to these?

[Sammy Boy]

1 hour ago, jimmydasaint said:

If a person feels pain and it is registered as an EEG trace, there is no reason why it cannot be fed back to the patient to replicate the pain.

Of course there is. You think you can replicate the cause of a signal by feeding back in the same signal? Of course you can't. Generating the tiny signals EEG detects and sending them back in the other direction will have no effect at all, let alone reproduce the earlier brain state.

And what difference would it make being connected to the internet or not?

Edited September 17, 2017 by Sammy Boy

[jimmydasaint]

 

OK. If a person shows a pattern "A" for joy and this is reproducible then there is a profile for that individual called "joy".  If the signal can be replicated by electromagnetic means, let's say by microwaves or terahertz waves, does it not recreate the initial mind-brain conditions that existed previously for "joy?" 

I thought stimulation of the brain with tiny electrodes could cause people to feel hunger or pain.  Using small electrical pulses could reproduce a feeling - why not using electromagnetic waves?  Your argument please.

[Sammy Boy]

5 minutes ago, jimmydasaint said:

If the signal can be replicated by electromagnetic means, let's say by microwaves or terahertz waves, does it not recreate the initial mind-brain conditions that existed previously for "joy?" 

No. Similarly if you play a sound into a radio it doesn't cause a man to start talking in a radio station.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Sammy Boy

[jimmydasaint]

OK, you don't seem to understand what I am talking about and vice versa.  If you have an electrode giving a small voltage to a brain centre in a lab rat, it can replicate hunger or satiety. Now what would the EEG look like?  If you have a readout and you can replicate the ionic depolarisation, will it not replicate the rat behaviour?  

I found this, slightly contradictory article about the uses of EEG, what is your analysis?

Quote

We created our own genuine facial emotional expression database for use in the study**. Participants viewed these stimuli while their EEG was measured. Then a classifier recognised which EEG features (power and coherence) corresponded to positive and negative emotions in each individual. We randomly selected 70% of each individual’s data from the positive and negative conditions, respectively, for each stimulus type. A pattern recognition algorithm learned how to classify the data into two separate categories (positive and negative). We then used the other 30% of the data to attempt to predict whether the participant was viewing or listening to positive or negative stimuli. The result is the percentage accuracy of this prediction. EEG power alone had very poor predictive power, hardly better than chance. In contrast, power and coherence together had excellent predictive power. The stimuli that produced the most accurate predictions were pure tones (95% accuracy); and the stimuli that produced the least accurate predictions were emotional images. This is unsurprising as tones are pure and unimpeded by ‘noise’, while images are varied in their content. The music was also highly predictive (93%); followed by the emotional faces (92%), the mood induction statements (91%) and finally the short video clips of emotional faces (87%).

Although this was a pilot study with a very small sample, this study showed that EEG pattern recognition is a promising method for measuring individuals’ emotional responses to visual and auditory stimuli. Its accuracy depends on the validity of the trained algorithms and its capability to perform on new datasets. Further research will focus on whether this powerful method can be used to accurately predict how people feel towards images and videos of products, people, brands and concepts.

http://themindlab.co.uk/detecting-emotions-with-eeg-patterns/

 

A more accurate description by you should be in  the following lines, as this is a Science Forum: The evidence is not there yet to show a feedback mechanism for EEG.  Your ego gets in the way of your answers.

And another. Bring your analysis and give your opinions clearly when they are opinions. My posts were opinions and I must clearly state this prior to further discussion:

Quote

Owing to the high temporal resolution and low cost of electroencephalography (EEG), it has been extensively used in recent attempts to detect emotional states due to its prominence in high temporal resolution but low cost. EEG and emotion correlation reported in numerous studies [1, 2] combined with computational modeling [3] enables possibility of automatically estimating emotional states. The use of musical excerpts as stimuli is considered to be a promising approach because music is understood to be capable of strongly eliciting various emotions [4]. However, very little is currently known about the subjective characteristics of human music perception

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40708-016-0051-5

Edited September 17, 2017 by jimmydasaint

[Sammy Boy]

18 minutes ago, jimmydasaint said:

If you have a readout and you can replicate the ionic depolarisation, will it not replicate the rat behaviour?  

No. You don't seem to understand how EEG works. It doesn't give a measure of all brain activity. Have you been involved in EEG experiments? 

Quote

Your ego gets in the way of your answers.

How rude. I think my knowledge gets in the way of your garbage. I'm done talking to you. Email some neuroscientists for a second opinion.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Sammy Boy

[jimmydasaint]

OK Sammy.  I have finished my kebab and now am watching a nice Netflix movie.  Neurofeedback presents a halfway house for my initial opinions; even if they were erroneous.  However, if I give you a scientific reference at least try to read it.  Have you ever read a scientific paper? Does it justify your arrogance?

Anyway, read this:

Quote

The focus of the Biocybernaut technology is not Evoked Potentials, but rather the continuous EEG that runs even in the absence of sensory stimulation reaching the brain.  These waves are called brain waves or EEG, which stands for Electro-Encephalo-Graph.  Brain wave measurements of the EEG provide information on the instantaneous and ongoing states of an individual’s brain.

Brain waves are given names based on their electrical frequency of oscillation.  Brain wave frequencies in cycles per second (called Hertz) range from below 1 Hertz to 100+ Hertz.  The following list of the different brain waves is in order of electrical frequency from lowest to highest:  Delta (0-4 Hertz), Theta (4-7 Hertz), Schumann (7-8 Hertz) , Alpha (8-13 Hertz), Beta (13-25 Hertz) and Gamma waves (25-100 Hertz).

Each brain wave has distinct sub-frequencies that are also defined based on their frequency.  The sub-frequencies are also all indicative of distinct brains states.

In addition to electrical frequency, EEG machines also measure electrical amplitudes.  Electrical amplitude is indicative of the power in a brain wave activity.  Brain wave feedback training, also called neurofeedback training, teaches individuals to reduce or increase their brain wave amplitudes at particular frequencies that are associated with useful and beneficial results.

http://www.biocybernaut.com/projects/

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Sniping has been split off to the trashcan. You will all cease and desist

 

[Daecon]

If it was possible to record brainwaves and replay them at a later time to re-experience them, would that mean in the future we could have dream recorders/replayers?

[geordief]

5 hours ago, Daecon said:

If it was possible to record brainwaves and replay them at a later time to re-experience them, would that mean in the future we could have dream recorders/replayers?

I am fairly certain this is impossible to do. Not sure if anyone in this thread is seriously suggesting some kind of a direct feedback mechanism.

 

If they are I would very much like  that idea to be backed up somehow. .

 

I am not even sure if it is theoretically possible at some time in the future. It would imply that the brain was able to treat a brainwave pattern as an external stimulus  that was immediately (re-?)  incorporated as a thought or mentation.

 

Bio-feedback works by the subject attempting to "move" his or her brainwave patterns in real time  but I feel this has zero  connection to what seems to have been brought up earlier in the thread.#

 

Aside from that , I am not quite sure what this research actually has . It could be a powerful tool ,but quite what for I don't know.

[StringJunky]

2 hours ago, geordief said:

I am fairly certain this is impossible to do. Not sure if anyone in this thread is seriously suggesting some kind of a direct feedback mechanism.

 

If they are I would very much like  that idea to be backed up somehow. .

 

I am not even sure if it is theoretically possible at some time in the future. It would imply that the brain was able to treat a brainwave pattern as an external stimulus  that was immediately (re-?)  incorporated as a thought or mentation.

 

Bio-feedback works by the subject attempting to "move" his or her brainwave patterns in real time  but I feel this has zero  connection to what seems to have been brought up earlier in the thread.#

 

Aside from that , I am not quite sure what this research actually has . It could be a powerful tool ,but quite what for I don't know.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2742486/Groundbreaking-experiment-allows-brain-brain-communication-internet-people-5-000-miles-apart.html

[geordief]

31 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2742486/Groundbreaking-experiment-allows-brain-brain-communication-internet-people-5-000-miles-apart.html

Yes ,that is interesting.  The inter brain communication   which in normally ** mediated by the vocal/motor  output of one brain and the sensory input (plus "integration" )of the second brain is replicated in a very  rudimentary way by signals moving across an  internet connection.

 

I don't know if anyone was supposing that this signal was able to reach its destination without great degradation (allowing only for snippets to be picked out  seemingly ) but  that potential achievement ,whilst extremely sexy may be an entirely unreasonable  prospect at any time in the future (it might  indeed herald an era of "thought control" or "mind fusion" )

 

** ie everyday routine  communication  such as two people  talking about the weather or films- anything at all,in other words.

[nec209]

The article should read human brain linked to computer not the internet. There was no internet of information.

The brain was linked to local computer not the internet.