"China Economic Weekly" reporter Yang Lin | Reporting from Beijing
When it comes to brain-computer interfaces, the first impression of the outside world may be the scene where Musk asked the monkey to achieve "mind typing". However, what has surprised the outside world recently is the team from China.
On May 4, the world's first non-human primate interventional brain-computer interface experiment was successfully achieved in Beijing, which realized the interventional brain-computer interface brain-controlled robotic arm in the monkey brain, which is of great significance for promoting research in the field of brain science, marking that the mainland brain-computer interface technology ranks among the international leaders.
The experiment, led by the team of Professor Duan Feng of Nankai University and jointly completed with the General Hospital of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (301 Hospital) and Shanghai Xinwei Medical Technology Co., Ltd., broke through core technologies such as intravascular EEG signal acquisition and interventional EEG signal recognition. Judging from the video data, the monkey after surgery only needs to "think about it" to let the robotic arm deliver food into its mouth.
This technology has a wide range of applications in medical, military and other fields, such as helping patients with stroke and frostbite recover, and even storing human thinking, consciousness and memory in the future. This series of amazing-sounding results has already begun to materialize. Some scenes in sci-fi blockbusters may not be so far away from us.
Monkeys only need to "think about it" to eat food.
A breakthrough in interventional brain-computer interfaces
Brain-computer interface refers to the direct connection created between the human or animal brain and external devices to realize the exchange of information between the brain and the device. At present, there are three main types of brain-computer interfaces, including invasive brain-computer interfaces, non-invasive brain-computer interfaces and interventional brain-computer interfaces. Neuralink, founded by "Silicon Valley Iron Man" Musk and a team of scientists, is one of the few companies engaged in the research and development of invasive brain-computer interfaces.
However, invasive brain-computer interfaces are traumatic, such as Neuralink's invasive brain-computer interface test monkeys, which have killed many people, and the company's human trials have not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Non-invasive brain-computer interfaces are susceptible to the effect of volumetric conductors in the brain, and the long-term stability of EEG signals is poor. The interventional brain-computer interface is a minimally invasive intervention method to puncture a small mouth of a blood vessel and realize brain-computer connection through minimally invasive surgery similar to cardiac stent intervention. This approach is less traumatic than invasive brain-computer interfaces.
The interventional brain-computer interface test led by Professor Duan Feng's team is to attach the interventional EEG sensor to the monkey cerebral blood vessel wall through interventional surgery, and the intracranial EEG signal can be collected without craniotomy, taking into account safety and recognition stability.
Duan Feng has long been engaged in research in brain science and robotics. In fact, he has tried the above 3 brain-computer interface methods.
As early as the summer of 2014, Duan Feng's research team completed the "brain-controlled car" experiment at Nankai University. The tester wears an EEG signal acquisition device equipped with 16 collection points, and "gives orders" to a car equipped with a computer processing system, on-board electronic control unit and other devices through EEG signals, and the car can accurately execute the prescribed instructions such as starting, straight forward, straight reversing, braking, locking or unlocking the door under the control of the human brain. According to reports, the achievement is the first in China to realize the "connection" of human brain driving and EEG signals with the car system, which is expected to completely change the driving mode of "hands" and "feet", so that the "driving dream" of physically disabled people is no longer far away.
Duan Feng's team also conducted an invasive brain-computer interface experiment on rats, which can realize that "people want to go to the left, rats to the left; Man wants to go right, rat to right." After that, the team also learned a lot about the situation of invasive brain-computer interfaces.
"This kind of experiment is very real-time, signal stability, accuracy are very good, because it is in the brain, there is no external interference, but it is very harmful, after the mouse finished the test, there are other later effects, I did not go further down this road." Duan Feng told the "China Economic Weekly" reporter, "I was thinking, how can I find a way to identify EEG AC signals accurately, harmless and harmless, that is only in the blood vessels." In this way, EEG signals can be detected, and no craniotomy is performed, and the brain is not harmed. ”
After completing animal testing of interventional brain-computer interfaces in sheep, the team began testing on non-human primates.
However, it may take a long time to apply technology to the clinic and achieve industrialization. This involves a series of supporting constructions such as policy support, financial support, personnel matching, and the construction of laws and regulations.
"Clinically, we have no precedent, and there are a series of problems such as future human trials and volunteer approvals. It's not just about technology, it's a complex. Duan Feng said.
At present, domestic and foreign are competing for brain-computer interface technology. Several companies around the world have completed animal testing of brain-computer interfaces, including Neuralink, BrainCo and Synchron. The mainland also has a number of achievements, such as in 2006, Tsinghua successfully developed a brain-computer interface system that can play football with "thinking"; In 2014, Mainland China successfully implanted electrodes in the brain for the first time to control robotic arms with thoughts; In 2021, the Neural Engineering Team of Tianjin University awarded the "CHINA TOP cited paper award 2021" by the British Physical Society Press for its "Enhance decoding of pre-movement EEG patterns for brain-computer interfaces", which recognizes the most influential papers published by researchers.
In the future, is it possible to achieve "implanted chips in the human brain"?
Duan Feng believes that this idea is not stuck in technology, but faces constraints in terms of funds, policies, laws and regulations, ethics and other aspects. "This kind of experiment is very expensive, and hundreds of millions of dollars may not be enough." It also needs the adaptation of talents, which is not to see how many SCI papers you graduate from 985, 211, but to need compound talents with engineering experience. ”
"Implanting medical devices in the human brain is no longer a forbidden area, there are already many mature products, but whether the thing planted is a chip or something else?" Zhang Han, the relevant person in charge of Shanghai Xinwei Medical Technology Co., Ltd., told the "China Economic Weekly" reporter.
He also believes that from a technical point of view, it is possible to implant medical devices in the human brain, but the core is to consider ethics, safety, purpose of use and other issues.
Xinwei Medical Medical Device listed company provided equipment technical support for this trial. In Zhang Han's view, cooperation is very important to promote the further development of brain-computer interface technology. "This experiment involves instruments for collecting signals, instruments for decoding signals, algorithms, etc., and also involves medicine, biology, computers, biochemistry and other disciplines. Collaboration is very important and requires everyone to work together to do interdisciplinarity. Basic research is a very important support for our industry, and without these things, what the industry can do is very limited. ”
He also bluntly said that at present, from the industrial side, there may not be a mature profit model and business model at home and abroad, because everyone is in the exploration stage.
"In addition to brain-computer interfaces, we also have many other projects, not every one of which can incubate mature, highly commercialized and profitable products, but even if 10% or 20% of the projects can be incubated, this is of great significance to support the company's long-term profitability and development." Zhang Han said, "We chose the brain-computer interface because it has a lot of convergence with us. The use of devices is highly relevant to our existing neurointerventional products, and our robotics R&D team can also do some technical support, and in this trial, the goals of all the participants are the same. ”
Professor Duan Feng (fourth from right) team
The sci-fi blockbuster scene is not far away
In fact, Duan Feng is not only good in the field of brain-computer interface technology, but also has research results in artificial hibernation, memory transplantation, and aircraft manufacturing.
In August 2022, the first domestic vertical take-off and landing jet-powered aircraft independently designed and developed by Duan Feng's team successfully flew in Tianjin. According to him, traditional small rotorcraft have a small load, while heavy helicopters need open terrain to take off and land. The vertical take-off and landing jet-powered aircraft of this test flight can solve these two major problems, and is expected to be applied to the field of air personnel transportation in the future, such as complex geographical environment rescue, urban first aid, etc.
Duan Feng's team also successfully achieved a temperature drop of 24 °C into hibernation for 24 hours, which was three times that of foreign mouse experiments. Where is the demand for "hibernation" of the human body in the future, he mentioned the application scenarios of the aerospace industry.
Originally, the European Space Agency (ESA) proposed a manned exploration concept that "sleeps" all the way from Earth to Mars - astronauts hibernate. Under normal circumstances, it takes about 180 days to fly from Earth to Mars, and astronauts enter a "numb" hibernation state by taking a special drug, followed by the brightness of the cabin dimming and the temperature greatly reduced to "cool" the astronaut's body.
This reminds people of movie scenes: astronauts lie in hibernation capsules, their hearts beat only 3 times per minute, their body temperature hovers at 2.78 ° C, they only need to ingest the minimum resources on the way, and finally wake up at the right time...
"There's still a lot of things that need to be done little by little, and then string everything together, like playing Go, to eventually form a system." Referring to his many research results, Duan Feng said.
He specifically mentioned two points, the internationalization of scientific research and the industrialization of scientific research results.
"We are trying to get first-hand information: what the international community is doing, how we are different from them, how to adapt to China, how to differentiate development; In terms of industrialization, we have established technologies suitable for the development of domestic industries by introducing cutting-edge technologies for digestion, such as realizing the localization of high-end medical devices, reducing prices and benefiting more people. Duan Feng said.
He also said that in this process, because there are more users using related products or technologies, the first-hand clinical data is more sufficient, and then according to the needs of the development of enterprises, new products are developed to promote scientific research improvement. "This is a two-way cycle, there is a technology chain and an industrial chain, and the combination of the two is a double-chain system. Under this premise, there will be a steady stream of fresh and subversive things coming out and can land. ”
Duan Feng believes that he may be more like an "investor". "But what I invest is not money, but to train students, give them opportunities, let them engage in high-precision technology research and development, train a group of 'industrial people', and turn technology into products."
(This article was published in China Economic Weekly, Issue 9, 2023)
Cover of the 9th issue of China Economic Weekly in 2023