brainwaves

What’s normal? When it comes to the brain, it’s hard to say, and that’s why we need to study global neurodiversity

by

In a small vil­lage in India—a place so remote it has no elec­tric­i­ty, no telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem, and no cars or buses—a research work­er pre­pares to place an EEG head­set on a female villager’s head. The woman, who earns $3.75 a day labor­ing in a near­by rice pad­dy and who has nev­er ven­tured out­side her vil­lage, eyes the futur­is­tic device with trepidation.

“Is it going to hurt my head?” she asks.

Sathish, the research work­er, has heard this ques­tion before. In fact, he’s heard sev­er­al sim­i­lar queries from anx­ious vil­lagers who have got­ten scared when they saw the brainwear.

“Will it give me a headache?”

“Is it going to give me an elec­tric shock?”

He assures the woman the head­set is pain­less and explains that all she has to do is sit qui­et­ly and allow her mind to wan­der. Sathish gen­tly adjusts an array of elec­trodes on the woman’s head and [Read more…] about What’s nor­mal? When it comes to the brain, it’s hard to say, and that’s why we need to study glob­al neurodiversity

Neurotech seen at CES 2020: BrainCo prosthetic hand, Urgonight, Alpha-Stim X, NIRSIT Lite, Muse S and FocusFit

by

___

Brain tech is here: These gad­gets from CES 2020 rely on your brain­waves to work (CNET):

“The futur­is­tic promise of tech devices that use brain waves to improve sleep, anx­i­ety and con­cen­tra­tion — and even con­trol pros­thet­ic hands — may final­ly be com­ing to fruition, with a slew of new prod­ucts on dis­play at CES 2020 in Las Vegas. Brain tech holds great poten­tial for help­ing us under­stand and con­trol our minds from the com­fort of our homes, but sci­ence still has a long way to go.

Here are some of the coolest brain tech prod­ucts we saw at CES 2020. Some of these prod­ucts are already on the mar­ket, while some are only pro­to­types.” Con­tin­ue read­ing over at CNET

News in Context:

On Awe, Healthy Eating, Mental Health, Ethical Neurotech, and more

by

_____

Time to wrap-up anoth­er very active month with our Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter sum­ma­riz­ing excit­ing devel­op­ments in brain research, health­care and tech­nol­o­gy — plus a cou­ple fun brain teasers to spark curios­i­ty and innovation 🙂

New brain research:

New thinking about brain & mental health:

Emerging neurotech and digital brain health:

Finally, a couple fun brain teasers:

 

Have a excel­lent Halloween…

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

Neuroinformatics meets music: Do you actually like that song or do you merely think you do?

by

As a neu­roin­for­mat­ics researcher, my vision is to bridge con­sumers wear­ing mobile EEG devices with online music rec­om­men­da­tion ser­vices. Our research group is already work­ing in that direc­tion, decod­ing brain­waves while lis­ten­ing to music in order to pre­dict “Like” rat­ings and then sub­mit the feed­back to music stream­ing services.

As an exam­ple, this past Sep­tem­ber we were asked to con­duct a music-EEG exper­i­ment for the ‘Music Free­dom’ ser­vice TV pro­mo cam­paign of TELIA [Read more…] about Neu­roin­for­mat­ics meets music: Do you actu­al­ly like that song or do you mere­ly think you do?

Recognizing unique EEG brainwaves to enhance biometric authentication: Key Neurotech Patent #20

by

– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 6,898,299

Today we are shar­ing a robust 2005 patent har­ness­ing EEG brain­waves in the (now) hot space of bio­met­ric authen­ti­ca­tion and secu­ri­ty. (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing a foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patent a day, from old­er to new­er by issue date)

U.S. Patent No. 6,898,299: Method and sys­tem for bio­met­ric recog­ni­tion based on elec­tric and/or mag­net­ic characteristics.

  • Assignee(s): GR Intel­lec­tu­al Reserve, LLC
  • Inventor(s): Juliana H. Brooks
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: EEG
  • Issue Date: May 24, 2005

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘299 patent applies EEG sig­nals, along with a num­ber of oth­er bio­met­ric sig­nals, to a wide array of authen­ti­ca­tion and secu­ri­ty appli­ca­tions. [Read more…] about Rec­og­niz­ing unique EEG brain­waves to enhance bio­met­ric authen­ti­ca­tion: Key Neu­rotech Patent #20

Next phase in the brain health revolution: Objective, physiological, and widespread measures of brain function

by

-- Credit: Marianne Meadahl, SFU
– Cred­it: Mar­i­anne Meadahl, SFU

Brain­waves could be the next health vital sign (Sci­enceDai­ly):

“Simon Fras­er Uni­ver­si­ty researchers hope that a brain vital-sign test becomes as rou­tine dur­ing a doc­tor’s check-up as tak­ing a blood pres­sure or heart rate mea­sure­ment [Read more…] about Next phase in the brain health rev­o­lu­tion: Objec­tive, phys­i­o­log­i­cal, and wide­spread mea­sures of brain function