Thought Powers Computer
From: Seattle Post-Intelligencer - 12/16/2004
By; Tom Paulson

Scientists in Seattle, WA, have developed a system that enables 19-year-old
epilepsy sufferer Tristan Lundemo to play a video game using mental impulses.
University of Washington neurosurgeon Dr. Jeff Ojemann and physics and
computer science graduate student Kai Miller are studying how people can
learn to operate devices using brainpower. Some 72 electrodes were implanted
in Lundemo's skull, not within the brain tissue itself but on the surface of
the brain; the electrodes are wired to a computer, allowing Lundemo to
control the movement of a cursor on a screen so that he can engage in a game
of Pong by thought. The electrode array is also used to record the patient's
epileptic seizures. "It's a two-way learning process," says Miller. "The
computer is adapting to him just as he is adapting to the computer." Lundemo
also mastered the operational principles of the game quickly, and Miller and
Ojemann think their approach may have played a role. Ojemann notes that the
regions in Lundemo's brain have shrunk in size concurrent with the patient's
increasing concentration. Miller and Ojemann say the brain-computer interface
discipline is a small but growing field, whose initial goal is to develop
technology that can make paralytics and amputees more independent. The
researchers are collaborating on the study with Dr. Gerwin Schalk of New
York's Wadsworth Center. 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/203984_brain16.html