German neuroscientist Niels Birbaumer is teaching 11
paralyzed patients who can't even blink their eyes how to use
their brain waves to control a computer. They've learned to
change the electrical signals coming from their brains by
visualizing an arrow about to be shot from a bow or a
runner crouched at the starting line. The electrical brain
waves generated by these types of thoughts can used to
control a cursor that selects letters to spell words, meaning
these formerly mute people can now communicate.
Many of his patients have degenerative diseases such as Lou
Gehrig's disease (ALS, the disease the English physicist
Stephen Hawking has). As the disease progresses, they lose
the ability to move, talk, swallow or breathe. But their minds
stay as sharp as ever. Michael Pellatt, an Australian ALS
patient, says, "If you can't communicate, it would be like
living in a clear casket. It would make a huge difference."
Their messages about being "locked in" aren't as awful as
Birbaumer imagined, before he taught them to
communicate. "They describe sleep-like fantasies and thinking
going on most of the time, not the desperation you would
expect of someone in such a state," he says. "There seems
to be some changes in time perception. Time doesn't seem to
move as fast for them."
Writing this way takes time?it can take 10 minutes to
complete a short sentence. Birbaumer gets the best results
with paralyzed patients who start learning how to use his
Thought Translation Device before they lose their other
means of communication, so they can move a finger or their
blink eyes to indicate "yes" or "no."
What he teaches is not like mediating?in fact, people who've
studied meditation have more trouble learning his techniques.
Healthy volunteers can learn to control their brain waves in
three to four sessions, while it takes paralyzed patients take
30 to 40 sessions. However, some people, both healthy and
paralyzed, simply can't seem to learn how to do it. Birbaumer
also teaches epileptics to avoid seizures by controlling their
brain waves.
There are many different kinds of brain waves. Birbaumer
teaches patients to control the ones called slow cortical
potentials. Physicist Nigel Livingston uses alpha waves, which
are generated by thinking about relaxing, pleasant things,
such as clouds floating in the sky, walking on the sand in
bare feet or eating ice cream.
Livingston started studying mind control because he has a
disabled daughter. He worries about the moral position he'd
be in if someone trapped in their body communicated that
they wanted to die. But Birbaumer has found that paralyzed
patients aren't usually severely depressed and do find their
lives worth living.
The next step would be to implant mind-control implants
directly into a patient's brain. Experiments with monkeys have
shown that implanted electrodes can control brain waves
much more efficiently, but so far, there have been no human
volunteers. Birbaumer says, "They find this idea too risky."
Absolutely anyone can learn how to
get in the gap. Learn
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