VIDA - Solo con pensar logran generar movimientos - URUGUAY

Los avances en el desarrollo de interfaces cerebro-máquinas posibilitarían mejorar la vida de personas discapacitadas. La misma tecnología se aplica en videojuegos de última generación.

Una mujer que no puede moverse de la cama consigue con su cerebro desplazar a un robot que le permite recorrer buena parte de su casa, ver qué está sucediendo e interactuar con algún miembro de su familia. También puede desplazar el cursor de su computadora o darle órdenes a un brazo artificial. Un hombre, con artrosis, consigue acercar su mano con un guante especial a una botella y logra agarrarla, servirse y luego dejarla.

Esos son solo algunos de los últimos progresos en el desarrollo de interfaces cerebro-máquina (Brain Computer Interfaces, BCI ), un campo de investigación que tiene ya varias décadas pero que en los últimos años logró resultados que comienzan a cambiar la vida de los discapacitados.

Los avances se difundieron en el marco del anuncio esta semana por parte de la Comisión Europea de que el Proyecto Cerebro Humano (Human Brain Project) será buque insignia en el área de la ciencia para los próximos años. La iniciativa es ambiciosa: simular todas las funciones del cerebro basándose en supercomputadoras. Para ello invertirán diez años, la colaboración de 80 instituciones y un presupuesto de, por lo menos, 1.190 millones de euros.

En los últimos días un equipo de científicos europeos presentó varios progresos. Se trata de investigadores que trabajaban desde hace cuatro años en el Proyecto Tobi (Herramientas para la interacción cerebro-computador por sus siglas en inglés), una iniciativa coordinada por la Escuela Politécnica Federal de Lausana, que con un presupuesto de 12 millones de euros desarrolló durante cuatro años (hasta enero último) tecnología práctica para la interacción entre el cerebro y las computadoras.

Durante la investigación participaron más de cien personas con discapacidad. Lo primero que hicieron fue identificar las áreas en que el BCI podía tener un impacto real en esa población: comunicación y control; reemplazo o recuperación motora; y entretenimiento.

Los científicos consiguieron desarrollar una serie de tecnologías que incrementan la comunicación de personas con discapacidad, que tienen así la posibilidad dar órdenes al cerebro y poder sustituir lo que tradicionalmente se hace con un teclado estándar o con el mouse. También crearon una interfaz gráfica adaptada a la navegación para personas con discapacidades severas. A través del pensamiento, el paciente mueve un cursor en una estructura de árbol para alcanzar rápidamente un personaje o una acción deseada.

A su vez, desarrollaron un pequeño robot ("Robotino") que permite a una persona sin posibilidades de moverse reconstruir vínculos sociales gracias a que es controlado a distancia con el pensamiento. Para conseguirlo asociaron la electroencefalografía, el reconocimiento de signos, detectores de obstáculos e Internet. Una vez que todos esos elementos funcionaron entre sí, el paciente fue capaz de "pasearse" virtualmente en un entorno familiar gracias a la cámara y a la pantalla incorporadas al robot.

En diciembre, se había presentado otro caso con resultados sorprendentes: una paciente paralizada desde el cuello para abajo, internada en una clínica de rehabilitación en Suiza, con un brazo robótico controlado por el cerebro pudo alimentarse por sí misma -cumplió su sueño de agarrar y comer sola un chocolate- y logró mover objetos de uso cotidiano. Para ello fue necesario colocar pequeños implantes en la corteza izquierda de su cerebro, la parte que da inicio al movimiento. "La mujer hizo las maniobras con la coordinación, habilidad y velocidad casi similar a la de una persona sana", dijo el autor principal del estudio, el profesor Andrew B. Schwartz, de la Universidad de Pittsburgh al publicar su investigación en la revista The Lancet.

VIDEOJUEGOS. Con tecnología similar varias compañías apuntan también a ampliar el mercado de los videojuegos. "OpenVibe 2" es el nombre del proyecto más revolucionario: usa el pensamiento del jugador para controlar las acciones que transcurren en el juego. Si éste piensa en mover la mano izquierda, una pelota en la pantalla se trasladará hacia esa dirección; si piensa en mover alternadamente los pies, una nave de La Guerra de las Galaxias emprende el vuelo.

La semana pasada, el equipo de científicos del Instituto francés de investigación en informática (INRIA) presentó detalles del proyecto. Jonathan y José, quietos frente a la pantalla y con una especie de gorra de baño con decenas de electrodos en su cabeza, eran los jugadores. Primero los hacían mover las manos, abriendo y cerrando los dedos repetidamente y la pelota en la pantalla comenzaba a moverse. Luego, ni siquiera tenían que mover la mano, sino concentrarse y pensar que lo estaban haciendo. "El objetivo es meter un gol y para eso tienes que tener mejor control mental que tu adversario", dijo Jonathan. De todos modos, esa tecnología aún está en pañales.

Microsoft también está revolucionando la escena. Su división de investigación, Microsoft Research, mostró IllumiRoom, un desarrollo que parece sacado de la película Minority Report. "Difumina la línea que hay entre el contenido en pantalla y el entorno en que nos encontramos, permitiendo combinar el mundo físico y virtual", dice en el blog de Microsoft Research Andy Wilson, quien lidera el equipo de este producto. Usan el dispositivo Kinect (dotado de cámaras y sensores) para escanear la habitación donde se va a jugar. Luego, proyectan en ella imágenes que convierten a la pieza en una extensión del televisor. Puede transformarse en un callejón sin salida durante un juego de acción o en una selva tropical en uno de aventuras. *En base a El Mercurio/GDA

LIFE AND HEALTH - Tell your pain to go away - UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Tell your pain to go away

Leave pills and painkillers behind with a new technique that harnesses the power of the mind to tackle anything from migraines to dermatitis. By Christine Fieldhouse

• By Christine Fieldhouse, Friday magazine
• Published: 14:57 August 8, 2012

• Image Credit: Supplied picture
• The Resolution Magic programme is is based on the theory that our symptoms are caused by electrical waves, which are created by our own neurological system.

Psychotherapist Olivia Roberts was astounded at the tiny, fragile, pale woman in front of her. Esther, 58, had suffered migraines two or three times a week since the age of 13. She had hoped they would subside once she retired and she would be able to use her extra time to perform as a musician.

Instead, they increased and she was having migraines every day, causing her to cancel concerts and spend long days in bed in the dark in excruciating pain.

“She looked like a tiny little sparrow when she came to me,” says Olivia, author of Chronic Pain and Debilitating Conditions Resolution. “She was so frail, I didn’t even know if she would be able to do my programme. She had been worn down by these migraines and when they started to get worse, she was in despair.


“It was as if the future she had looked forward to for so long had been snatched away from her. She could see nothing but pain ahead.”

Like many of Olivia’s clients, Esther was sceptical about being able to rid herself of the pain that had dominated her adult life and she was relieved to hear she didn’t have to believe in the process – she simply had to go through a series of mind-over-matter exercises.

Olivia’s programme is called Resolution Magic, and it is a series of simple mental exercises that have been used to ease the pain of, and sometimes put an end to, conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, migraine, chronic fatigue, joint aches and pains and skin conditions such as dermatitis, among others. It is based on the theory that our symptoms are caused by electrical waves, which are created by our own neurological system. Olivia, who is also a master NLP (neurolinguistic programming)

practitioner, believes the electricity travels along our nerves and whatever is at the end of the line – a joint for example – is going to have the symptom. She says if the electricity travels to one area, such as the ear, for years, it could result in a serious problem such as deafness.

“I discovered from research that before a migraine attack there is a wave of neurological activity, and I used my programme successfully on that for myself,” recalls Olivia, who had suffered from migraines for decades. “I had also been putting up with irritable bowel syndrome for years without realising my programme would work on that too, until I tried it in 2004. I was amazed.

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“It was then that I realised a lot of conditions – not just migraine – are caused by neurological activity and my programme would work for all of them.

“People describe their symptoms in terms of electricity; we say we have a stabbing or a burning pain. Our brains are the generators that send out these waves of electricity, and they can be triggered by several things including past memories and present unwanted feelings.”

Retraining the brain

 

Clients start the programme by listening to a CD in which Olivia talks them though a mental exercise, designed to teach the subconscious a new sequence to lead them back to good health. It begins with a special phrase – “Go away!” – which is said forcefully. The idea is that brain then stores the sequence and the client can draw on it whenever they need it. At first the brain carries on as it always has done, but gradually, it is retrained – the new sequence is adopted, and the symptoms reduce.

To encourage the brain to adopt the new sequence, a mental exercise routine is repeated at the first hint of a symptom – the moment you feel a migraine coming on or a pain in your shoulder, for example, you need to find somewhere private where you can repeat the phrase “Go away!” forcefully for 30 seconds. It can be done inside your head – you don’t have to say it out loud. This needs to be done every two hours while symptoms persist.

By doing these exercises, we retrain the subconscious part of our brain so that it gradually stops sending out abnormally strong neurological waves.


 Escaping the pain of the past

Olivia also believes that some of our pain is exacerbated by past experiences or memories, which can be triggered, often without us knowing. One minute we’re happy with life, the next our mood has inexplicably changed. According to Olivia, the answer lies in the memory boxes we store in our subconscious mind.

She explains: “You may be walking down the street perfectly happy when you see a cheerful little boy with a blue balloon and several memory boxes may open and close. It may be the colour blue that triggers a memory of you sitting in a blue chair at the dentist’s waiting to have a tooth extraction, or the balloon may trigger a memory of a disastrous party you had. You will not be aware of these connections, just that your mood has slumped.

“But once you feel like this, it contributes towards creating waves of neurological activity that travel along your nerves and give you a pain or an ache. The symptom goes up through the pain scale as the neurological wave increases. It may at first create a tickle, then an ache, then full-on pain.

“Past experiences affect the way you feel in the present day, and they can also affect physical symptoms. Present-day anxiety, nervousness, worrying or irritability also contribute to the creation of physical symptoms. It’s as if all of these things ‘wind up’ your subconscious brain, getting it ready to fire off a wave of neurological activity along a nerve.”

Olivia has several techniques to deal with past experiences or memories, based on the fact that most of the knowledge we need is within us. Sometimes we go back to just before the upsetting event and replay it as a cartoon, or she gives us a magic wand to change things within our memory. We talk to the child version of ourselves and time-travel between ourselves as adult and child, telling each other what we know.

 A lot of her techniques sound farcical, yet they have had astounding results.

Esther, the musician with the migraines, worked at Resolution Magic and gradually her migraines went from a pain rating of regular brain-crushing nines to barely-there ones. She’s now at zero, having not had a migraine attack for years.

“It took her over a year to work through these migraines,” recalls Olivia, “but she looks like a different person now she’s free of pain. She looks stronger, she has colour and vibrancy and she’s much happier, playing her music, and performing to audiences.”

CASE STUDY

Morag Jamieson, 40, is full-time mum to James, three, and she lives in Inverness in the UK. Resolution Magic helped rid her of migraines.

“I’d suffered with migraines from the age of four. When I was eight, I tried taking a herb, Feverfew, and that worked until I was 14, but the migraines came back with a vengeance, making me vomit and giving me visual disturbances. Not knowing what was going on, I thought I was going blind. I also had the bizarre symptom of crying when a migraine was coming on.

As a teenager I had a lot of time off school and as an adult I was off work for five days whenever I had a migraine. I was on so much medication, yet nothing seemed to stop the migraines from striking.

I found out about the Resolution Magic programme on the internet while researching migraine cures, but to be honest, it all sounded unrealistic and I couldn’t believe that telling a pain to go away would work. I told programme founder Olivia Roberts I didn’t believe it would work, but she said it didn’t matter what I believed and I just had to go through the motions and do the exercises.

I listened to the CD, then started saying the ‘Go-aways’. I also worked with Olivia on my past experiences and memories that seemed so random and were often things I thought I’d completely forgotten about. One that came up was a childhood memory of being seasick on a ferry on my way up to the Shetland Islands. I’d completely forgotten this but it popped into my mind so we worked on it. Olivia gave the ferry legs to walk on the bottom of the sea and she gave me a magic wand to make the people on the ferry look like clowns. It sounds ludicrous, but by doing this I transformed my memory of a horrible trip into a fun journey.

Another memory was when I went to hide as a child just before my family set off on holiday, and they actually left the house without me! They soon came back but I had a distinct memory of watching the car driving off without me from an upstairs window!

 Olivia pointed out to me that these memory boxes would keep opening up throughout my life and cause me the feelings of distress I felt back then – until I reprogrammed my brain. I even used her technique of running on the spot and clapping three times while shouting ‘Go away’ to get some energy when I was feeling tired.

Resolution Magic has rid me of my migraines and given me my life back. I’m so glad I gave it a try.”

SOCIETY / HEALTH - INDIA

Tricks to activate both sides of brain

Though one side of your brain is dominant, a few tricks can activate both hemispheres so you can be both creative and logical

Aman paints with his brains, not with his hands. When painter Michelangelo said this 500 years ago, he did not know how far science would take this idea. The theory of lateralisation says that the human brain is separated into two cerebral hemispheres, the left and the right brain, both of which execute different functions. And painting is to do not just with the brain, but in fact, with the right side of it.

While several theories on the left-brain and right-brain dominance abound, the basics are easy. The right hemisphere controls your body's left side, and vice versa. When you use the left or logical side, you are being analytical, attentive, objective and rational. This is the part you use to process language, facts, science, math and strategies. The right side, however, is driven by feelings, beliefs, imagination and subjective thinking. It is creative, impulsive, intuitive, thoughtful and processes visuals and multi-tasks.

The brain, which works on the 'use it or lose it principle,' has often been likened to a muscle - the more you use it, the better it gets. The fact that we are either left-brained or right-brained makes it important that we improve the less-dominant side. Here are simple ways to improve the balance and the coordination between both sides. Left brain work-outs 1 From crafting the right sentence structure to perfecting spelling and grammar, the process of writing and the planning that goes behind it is one of the best ways to enhance your analytical side and stay sharp. This could mean blogging, and even social networking may not be such a 'waste of time' after all. Tweeting compels you to spruce up your communication as your thoughts are limited to only 140 characters. 2 Logic-fuelled activities such as crosswords, anagrams, Sudoku, tough math problems or a game of chess are great for stimulating the left brain. Try and crack reasoning and aptitude tests that are freely available online to boost your grey cells. 3 Being systematic, it turns out, has more advantages than improving productivity and acing time management. Making to-do lists, organising data, chalking plans for the day or maintaining a diary aid in improving your left brain. 4 Learn a new skill, activity or language. Doing so optimises left brain functions as it is good at being focused and works well with conditioning exercises. 5 READ that book, don't skim. Reading engages your mind wonderfully while skimming content and running your eyes through a page only weakens the left brain in the long run. Right brain work-outs 1 Astute observation plays a key role in developing a photographic memory. Take five minutes off to minutely observe your train station or your deskspace. Remember the details with your eyes closed, and for authentic results, record yourself while at it so you know where you stand. Doing this regularly will strengthen your powers of observation. 2 Word association, doodling and memory games help unlock your right brain's coolest weapon - creativity. If you have shied away from sketching or painting, now is the time to take up that sketch-pen or brush. Experiment...for your brain's sake. 3 Take up an art of your interest; music, painting, dance, theatre or writing, as they are all right-brain activities. Playing an instrument is a guaranteed right brain booster. While humming to your favourite tunes, make up random lyrics that rhyme. 4 Use the Japanese art of Origami to spark up your motor skills. Folding paper into fascinating shapes will push you to be more innovative with each attempt. So will making knick-knacks from junk. 5 Thinking up a strategy, visualising it and then immediately implementing it is the right brain's delight. So when you play sports such as tennis,table tennis or badminton, the right brain is at its peak.

Striking the right (and left) balance
1 Juggling demands great handeye co-ordination and gets them in action together. But to offset your habits and left or right brain dominance, try doing daily activities with your non-dominant hand. If you are right-handed, use your left hand to write, and vice versa.

2 Around 80 years ago, psychologist John Stroop came up with an interesting test to gauge the ability of brain's two sides to work together. Use alternate-colored pens to write a series of colour names but try to read only the color. So you may write 'Yellow' using a blue pen, but the challenge is to read it as Yellow and so on. This conflict-inducing test combines colour and language awareness and activates the anterior cingulate, a section of the brain that lies between the left and right hemispheres and helps resolve conflicts between them.