Brain-computer interface: 7-year-old rhesus monkey "Wukong" playing game experiment
With the increasing attention to the development of AI+ brain science, the development of invasive brain-computer interface technology in China is accelerating.
Titanium Media App learned that on July 6, at the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) "Brain-Computer Intelligent Digital Life" theme forum, Tianqiao Brain Science Research Institute (TCCI) announced that it will invest another 1 billion yuan to support AI+ brain science, including the establishment of a MindX laboratory with a fund of 100 million US dollars, the construction of AI+ sleep dreams, anti-aging and other cutting-edge laboratories, each with a start-up cost of 50 million yuan, and will continue to invest.
Chen Tianqiao, founder of TCCI, said: "The digital life depicted in science fiction is desirable, and I believe that only AI + brain science can create a real and soulful digital life. ”
At the same time, as a company supported by Chen Tianqiao and TCCI Applied Neurotechnology Frontier Laboratory, invasive brain-computer interface company Braintiger Technology released seven phased new scientific research results at this conference, spanning academic, scientific research, medical clinical and other fields, and also announced experimental videos and on-site display of the latest surgical robots and technology research solutions.
- 1. The "silk protein neurophotoelectrode" realizes brain nerve analysis and regulation, and is inserted into the mouse brain by silk protein fiber and multi-channel ultra-flexible microelectrode and stimulated, and the signal is collected in the mPFC brain area of the left hemisphere of the mouse to stimulate its behavior.
- 2. "Biomimetic flexible neural probe electrode of mosquito-like mouthparts" realizes minimally invasive implantation of epidural mater. The neural probe system formed by the 128-channel flexible electrode array, the multi-functional implant module of the adjustable rigid shuttle needle and the high-sensitivity tactile sensor array was implanted into the mouse brain, penetrated the dura mater, sensed intracranial blood vessels through tactile feedback, and collected high-quality single-neuron activity signals 12 hours after surgery.
- 3. The brain-computer interface is implanted in dogs and the exercise decoding experiment is completed, and the 2-year-old Labrador dog "Neo" is implanted with the brain-computer interface, through the 30-day paradigm treadmill running, to achieve sports information feedback, and use EEG decoding to predict the movement trajectory, with an average accuracy rate of more than 80%.
- 4. Brain-computer interface implanted in rhesus monkey game experiment. The 7-year-old rhesus monkey "Wukong" completed the electrode implantation surgery of the brain-computer interface in May, and can collect LFP signals after implanting 256-channel cortical electrodes, and "Wukong" successfully achieved the experimental effect of playing games through thoughts. This is similar to the monkey game effect announced by Neuralink, the brain-computer interface company founded by Musk.
- 5. Precise positioning of the functional area of the clinical operation of the cortical electrode, and guide the surgeon to remove the lesion of the brain area. In June this year, Braintiger Technology and other institutions completed a brain-computer interface implantation experiment in a 35-year-old female patient, through the intraoperative awakening of the patient, instructing the patient to execute the language-related paradigm, if the language-related brain area has an obvious response, it can be used for passive (no electrical stimulation), real-time, rapid positioning of the language area.
- 6. The person on the brain-computer interface completes the language decoding test. On May 11 this year, Braintiger Technology and other institutions completed a brain-computer interface implantation experiment in a 44-year-old female patient, implanting 256-channel flexible cortical electrodes for intraoperative Chinese intonation speech decoding, and the electrodes mainly covered the patient's ventral sensorimotor cortex (VSMC) to record the EEG signals during the subject's pronunciation. Combined with the self-developed back-end EEG acquisition device, the EEG signals in the subject's pronunciation process were recorded during the operation to realize Chinese speech decoding and synthesis.
- 7. Flexible deep electrode scientific research clinical, to achieve effective recording of single neuron signals. In February this year, Braintiger Technology and other institutions implanted a brain-computer interface in a 42-year-old male patient, successfully completed a 256-channel flexible deep electrode implantation surgery, and successfully achieved single-neuron Spike signal recording.
"In May this year, we completed the world's first experiment of implanting a semi-invasive brain-computer interface device into rhesus macaques for table tennis." Peng Lei, co-founder and CEO of Braintiger Technology, said that the brain-computer interface implanted in the rhesus monkey game experiment, in terms of decoding accuracy, the correlation between the predicted trajectory and the real trajectory is more than 85%, and the delay is controlled within 30ms, while achieving stable decoding of more than 14 days.
In terms of products, Braintiger Technology also released the flexible electrode implantation surgical robot FlexShuttle/FlexShuttle Mini and the EEG acquisition chip M2 for the scientific research and medical markets.
Large animal surgical robot
Among them, FlexShuttle has a high-precision multi-level precision vision module design, deep learning combined with binocular positioning, intelligent recognition, accurate locking, and a wide range of all-round coverage of the skull, multi-modal sensing detection to achieve automatic and safe stop of the skull opening, compatible with tungsten needle puncture flexible electrode, silk protein electrode operation; EEG acquisition chip M2, is a self-developed 64-channel digital-analog hybrid chip, using fully self-developed 16-bit high-precision ADC module, die area is 30% smaller than foreign competing products, compatible with mainstream signal acquisition equipment, it is reported that M2 products have reached a commercial landing intention with Shanghai Huashan Hospital, Tianjin University and other institutions, and are expected to be introduced to the market in the second quarter of next year.
For the diversification of products, the inconsistency of software and hardware, and the problems of "brain science is now divided", Braintiger Technology has also released an open platform for brain science to unify the software and hardware product line. Peng Lei mentioned that algorithms involving signal processing, spectrum motion capture, channel selection, neural network decoding, and motion trajectory prediction will be open source in the future.
In order to improve the understanding of mainland clinicians on the clinical application of implantable brain-computer interface medicine, at this forum, Braintiger Technology and the Science Communication Center of Shanghai Science and Technology Museum officially signed a memorandum of cooperation on popular science education, which will help popularize science and technology resources in the future. At the same time, the Brain-Computer Interface and Interaction Branch of the Chinese Society of Neuroscience and the National Medical Center for Neurological Diseases (Huashan Hospital) officially launched the "Ethical Expert Consensus on the Clinical Application of Implantable Brain-Computer Interface Medicine" compilation project. The program is applicable to universities, research institutes and medical institutions at all levels in related research fields. The clinical issues covered mainly involve the treatment methods of brain-computer interface, the norms of use and precautions and adverse reactions.
Peng Lei, co-founder and CEO of Braintiger Technology
"This time we are releasing some clinical products of semi-implantation, and in the next few months, we will announce fully implanted subcutaneous high-throughput brain-computer interface products, which will be slightly different from the market for semi-implantation." Peng Lei believes that brain-computer interfaces are not limited to monkeys playing a game, and there is too much room for imagination in the future.
Peng Lei believes that brain-computer interface (BCI) and general artificial intelligence (AGI) are a process of integration, carbon-based life and silicon-based life will definitely come together in the future, the direction is the same, this "bridge" has been established.
Tao Hu, founder and chief scientist of Braintiger Technology, said that brain-computer interfaces are doing the process of turning patients back into normal people, which means doing more clinical research and doing greater diagnosis and treatment of heavy brain diseases. The ceiling of the brain-computer interface is to turn normal people into superhumans, hoping to combine our brains with more powerful perceptrons and actuators in the outside world through brain-computer interfaces, and make more continuation of our facial features and limbs.
However, most industry insiders believe that the field of brain-computer interface is still regarded as a "research" ecology, and it is necessary to continuously explore its consumer-level applications. A number of industry insiders told Titanium Media App after the meeting that the research results of Braintiger Technology are faster than people think. An investor told Titanium Media App that he thought it was more shocking after watching the conference.
"We're really doing the most complex thing known in the universe, it's very difficult and challenging, and it's nice to have the opportunity to report back on progress once a year." But we hope that more people will join Braintiger, cooperate with us, build an ecosystem, make an open platform, and truly use everyone's efforts to achieve our ultimate goal. Penley concluded. (This article was first published on Titanium Media App, author | Lin Zhijia)