Teenager Moves Video Icon Just by Imagination
From: Washington University (St. Louis) - 10/09/2006
By: Tony Fitzpatrick

A 14-year-old boy was able to complete two levels of the two-dimensional 70s
video game Space Invaders by simply looking at an object on a screen and
imagining it moving. A team of neurologists and neurosurgeons and engineers
at Washington University in St. Louis carried out the experiment meant to
test the feasibility of biomedical devices that patients could use to control
prosthetics simply by thinking about it. The study used a grid placed atop
the boy's brain, an invasive technique that uses electrocorticographic
activity directly from the surface of the brain. The Atari game console
software was programmed to accept signals from the brain-machine interface.
The grid was already in place because the boy is an epileptic, and scientists
were hoping that when he had his next seizure they could find the part of the
brain that causes it, and remove the section. This type of brain-machine
interface is an alternative to non-invasive electroencephalographic systems
that use electrodes attached to the scalp. The boy was first instructed to
move his hands so brain function could be correlated with physical movement.
He was then told to play the game by moving his hand and tongue, then to
imagine performing these movements, but keep completely still. By looking at
the cursor (spaceship) on the screen he was able to direct its movement. "He
learned almost instantaneously," says Eric C. Leuthardt, MD, assistant
professor of neurological surgery at the school of Medicine. 

Read the entire article at:
http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/7800.html

Links:
Teenager Plays Space Invaders with His Mind
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2006/10/teenager_plays.html

Eric C. Leuthardt, MD
http://www.intellectualventures.com/inventor.aspx?id=5a44239d-b21d-48a2-bb26-34ca62573d5b