Remarkable Insights Brain Computer Interface science or science fiction

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Welcome everyone to remarkable insights my name  is Pete Horsley I'm the founder of remarkable we   are an early-stage tech accelerator for startups  that are creating technology for disability   we are part of Cerebral Palsy Alliance  and we have our principal partner is icare   and we have partnerships with Telstra,  Vivcourt and Microsoft as well Remarkable is where hopefully technology meets  human potential and we see a real gap that exists   in the place that technology can play in the  lives of people with disability we mainly do that   through a 14-week accelerator program where we  support early stage startups commercializing their   technology and getting them on the path to getting  their technology into the hands of the people that   need it most I want to acknowledge that i'm on  the land of the Guringai people this is their   land it was never ceded and it's always sacred  and I pay my respects to elders past present   and emerging and to whoever you are joining us  from as well and the traditional lands that you're   meeting on also pay my respects to elders past and  present there also also to pay my respects to the   disability advocates who have come before us have  fought for the rights of people with disability   over many many decades and um we stand on their  shoulders now in doing the work that we do we have   both a privilege and a responsibility because of  the work that they've done so today's conversation   about remarkable remarkable insights  conversation is about brain-computer interface   and we know that there's significant  opportunity to leverage technical innovation   to drive an inclusive future and we want to ask  the question about who's getting left behind   as technology accelerates around us and  we want to ask as well how can we start   to create an inclusive now rather than just an  inclusive future so for anyone wanting to join   this conversation on social media please use  the our social media handles at remarkabletech   and also use the hashtag remarkableinsights um the  event has live captioning by Otter AI you can make   use of that um using the live transcript we also  have a separate um AI transcript that you can um   click on on your screen as well um and today  we also have uh um sign interpretation by Taryn   Coswello so welcome Taryn as well today we're  joined by Nicholas Opie from synchron um presently   in lockdown in Melbourne Australia we've got  Beata Jarosiewicz from Neuralink in San Francisco   and Zuby Onwuta from think and zoom in Austin  Texas um welcome to each of you uh today uh some   of the people on this call are very familiar  with uh what what brain-computer interface is   um but for some of us it might be  relatively new so i'm going to ask Beata if   you've been at the forefront of BCI for quite  some time um working with a number of different   organizations including uh someone who's a good  friend of Cerebral Palsy Alliance and remarkable   lee hochberg and the team at braingate so do you  mind just giving us an explanation of what BCI   is please? i would be happy to um can you guys  see my slides okay hear me okay um so let's see i'm sorry it's got this live captioning thing  at the top there we go okay so um just a brief   overview of uh motor brain-computer interfaces  which are meant to help people with paralysis   to be able to control their environment and  communicate um so like every cell in your body   uh brain cells also called neurons have a voltage  across their membrane and when they communicate   with one another they rapidly change their voltage  over the course of um just a millisecond or so um   and we can spy on these so-called action  potentials or the firing of these neurons   to try to interpret what the brain is  trying or what the brain indicates that   the person's movement intention is at  any given moment in time um for example   so this is a picture of a human brain on the top  left here where the left side is the front and   the right side is the back and the red strip  there the strip labeled in red is called the   motor cortex this is the part of the brain that  controls voluntary movement um different parts   of the motor cortex if you look at this blown-up  cross-section represent different parts of the   body so if you record from the neuron in the  hand or arm area of motor cortex you might find   activity that represents the person wanting to  make particular movements of the hand or arm   and here's an example of a neuron that  we recorded when i was at brain gate   from participant kathy hutchinson um the  technician is going to be asking her to   imagine that she's opening and closing her  hand and see if you can um hear a difference   in the activity of this neuron it's going  to sound like little popping sounds relaxed imagine you're opening your hand relax close your hand relax open your hand so you can tell whenever the person is imagining  opening our hand the neuron kind of goes crazy   and when she imagines closing it the neuron  gets very quiet and then with relax it's   somewhere in between so you can take a neuron  like this and just look at its firing rate in   small windows of time and use that information  to open and close a prosthetic hand for example   just by asking the person to imagine that  they're opening and closing their own hand   so here's a video of us doing that with  another brain gate participant matt naval so that's a very basic example of a brain-computer  interface um but other neurons in motor cortex   have encoding for particular imagined  movements in different directions in space   so for example one neuron might encode movements  imagined leftward movements another neuron   might um increase its firing rate when the  person imagines moving their hand up and if   you record from a lot of neurons at the same time  which a lot of brain computer interfaces do um   and you know the preferred directions of all of  the different neurons that you're recording from   you can look at their firing rates at each moment  in time and figure out from the pattern across   the neurons which direction the person intends  to move and then use that movement information   that you've decoded to for example move  a computer cursor on a computer screen   this is the um the basic explanation or the  intuition for how a brain computer interface works   and of course you can use that to allow a person  with paralysis to um to point and basically use a   point-and-click mouse with her brain as though she  were controlling an actual computer mouse and this   is another brain gate participant t6 who is typing  an email to my colleague Paul Nuyujukian and using   a brain computer interface um and then just  for context at braingate or sorry at neurolink   where i currently am we're trying to make a fully  implantable and cosmetically invisible brain   computer interface with lots and lots of channels  that will allow a person to be able to control   devices in a very similar way just by thinking  about how they want to move that's the end of   my little intro i will stop sharing thank you  thank you so much you should be a teacher Beata   i feel like thank you i feel like we we have a  really good um base understanding of the kind of   technology we're talking about here and just to  give some warning to our participants today that   um that we probably might also be mentioning  other things like EEG, and FMRI, intercourtical   uh neuroprosthetics and other other kind of  terminologies hopefully we'll try and explain   those if we do mention those on the way through  um so we know that that BCI isn't necessarily uh   kind of reading our thoughts um but it's reading  the brain's activity when there's intentional   thought typically towards a physical activity  i want us first to explore the use of of some   of these cases picking up the signals and then  using them to control something outside the body   so nick firstly congratulations on the 40  million series b capital raise earlier this year   and already you've been doing human trials in  australia but i know that you've just started   or just got approvals for human trials in in  the us as well so huge steps towards your own   commercialization so congratulations for that  um what what excites you about the potential   of this technology particularly for those  people who might be living with a disability   yeah i think it's just fascinating how the  field's grown uh certainly you know from some   of the work Beata mentioned in in Braingate back  in the day the the ability to access information   from within the brain extract it and then convert  it into signals that can be used by people with   paralysis to control uh computers or robotic hands  or or vehicles being robots and and wheelchairs   and so forth uh it is just incredible and it's  really fantastic to see the field progress to a   stage where um it's starting to you know turn  from early stage research showing that it's   it's feasible and possible to to things like what  we're doing where uh it's being implanted into   people and being used by them to enhance their  their quality of life i think it's uh it's amazing   to to watch the progression and you know there's  early stages a long way to go but it's it's   fascinating to watch that's brilliant and and Zuby  you didn't start your career kind of in this space   um uh you kind of came to this technology through  a slightly different track uh can you tell us the   story of how you started working with bci sure  uh thanks so much Pete and thanks everybody uh   for being here so yeah i'm currently in Austin  Texas USA and um yeah i kind of fell into this   and now i'm on a journey of creating a  better world for people with disabilities   so i started out just wanting to be a physician  just want to be a doctor and i did that pre-med   and i was in the u.s military but within two  short years i went from seeing the eye chart from   roughly 10 feet away or more to now down to just  one foot away it was dramatic i became legally   blind from a form of Juvenile macular degeneration  called Stargardt and um at that time once you hit   your 2200 it's supposed to plateau one stop but  mine never stopped and so um by the age of 21   i had to scramble for plan c as i had to  exit the military and exit my medical studies   so i chose engineering and i struggled all the way  through i had the opportunity of working for some   fortune 500 companies and so i immersed deeply  into software engineering but then uh within that   journey i ended up at the school for the blind  learning non-visual skills so you can imagine   it was a very very tough and challenging  time and then several years after that   i spent some more times at no vision all kinds  of ophthalmologists 300 of them and we discovered   that i actually have three genetic mutations  affecting my retina so that explained why um i was   having all the fluctuations and unstable vision  but all throughout this time i kept thinking of   how can i create something that could not  only help myself but also millions of people   like myself and so that's what threw me into  neuroscience that's how i discovered brain control   and now i'm on this journey of critiquing  better worlds for people with disabilities   and tell us a little bit about the  technology that you've created so far   so think and zoom leverages the power of brain  waves but it does that knowing invasively for   so from a wearable BCI which is a sensor  that touches you know outside of your head   and just like a Beata explained we harness you  know the electrical impulses coming from the brain   and we've been able to develop a prototype to show  that it is possible to look think and zoom in to   see better so essentially in layman's terms you  can now use your brain to influence magnification   so you don't no longer have to use your hands  or manually control you cannot think and zoom   in to see better it's brilliant fantastic Beata um  earlier this year your boss i don't know if we're   able to call him this but um Elon Musk announced  that a monkey could play with video games using um   its mind um this is kind of using the signals  to control uh something external like what   you explained before and while some parts of this  technology are new um some of the applications of   this this kind of technology have been used for  decades through devices like cochlear implants   that were also starting to put signals that were  also used to put signals back into the brain   as well so um Elon's also been known to say that  BCI was integral for humans not to be outpaced by   artificial intelligence so it seems to be that  it's one thing to get signals out of the brain   to control an external device but  then another thing to i guess use   those signals or to put signals back into  the brain so i guess my question to you is   what's the potential of this of this technology  to put signals back into the brain and what could   that mean for people with disability and also i'd  love you to mention some of the work that you've   already done with another company through epilepsy  as well sure um so that's a very big question   but as you mentioned you know cochlear implants  provide a really good example of a very promising   way to put information into the brain that  the brain can then learn um over not too long   a period of time to make sense of and make  use of for people with um hearing disorders   um of course that the resolution of the input that  you get from a cochlear implant is nowhere near   the actual cochlea but um with the brain's  plasticity um you know the brain has this amazing   ability that if um if a source of input into it  contains information about the external world that   it's useful to the person or to the animal it's  going to learn how to make use of that information   um and there's um of course there's also  visual prosthetics under development for you   know stimulating the visual cortex with the  device like ours and there's also of course   retinal prosthetics um other things like that  under development that are also very promising   as for um oh and you also mentioned  with epilepsy you know recording from um   i used to work at a company called NeuroPace also  that um that makes the the RNS systems responsive   neurostimulation so it listens for um brain  activity indicating that the person is about   to have a seizure um coming from the seizure focus  and sends some brief electrical stimulation to try   to normalize that activity and prevent the seizure  from progressing and that also works tremendously   well for people with medically refractory epilepsy  um as for writing in the kind of information   Elon is talking about where you want to basically  be able to do a google search in your brain or   be able to you know communicate with one another  without having to speak um that's going to take um   i think it's going to take a lot of either  like better understanding of the brain that   then we currently have or a big leap in  technology that i currently can't envision   but it is definitely a goal  of neurolink a long-term goal   that's brilliant and nick um just in terms of  the work of of Synchron um give us an update   on kind of where things are up to uh now and what  what the next steps in terms of um some of those   human trials are going to look like uh sure  so synchron at the moment is as you mentioned   uh continuing uh human clinical trial in australia  and and branching out to the us um our technology   is a little bit different to to a lot of the  other existing brain machine interfaces in that we   uh came up with a way where you didn't have  to perform any invasive um remove craniotomy's   removal of the skull you don't need to do  that to to implant our device to the brain uh   using blood vessels as the you know the naturally  occurring pathway to get to the different regions   so uh through a small incision like an injection  in the neck we can put our device up and to the   motor cortex as we are mentioned before uh  and once it's there the the patients can   you know use their brain to think about activities  that they would like to perform and and the device   can obviously pick that up and wirelessly transfer  those out of the body to uh to be interpreted   and used to control external equipment um i  think certainly you know for us continuing the   clinical trial we uh when we started the company  about 10 years ago uh our vision really was to   go beyond uh amazing research that everyone on the  panel here is doing and get it into a product that   can be used by people um to help them with their  with their lives and to help them and their carers   perform different activities so uh we're still on  that pathway to you know start of a a long journey   um you know a lot of regulatory approvals  and fda testing and needs to be needs to be   achieved and and certainly we're well on the way  to getting a product out to those that can use it   uh with the idea being that for people  who have um a through damage or disease   a functioning brain but a body that isn't uh isn't  connected so they can't move their arms or limbs   um spinal cord injury for example motor neurone  disease or als in in the us and other different   conditions that prevent the signals from going  from the brain to to their body and you know   we're planning on helping those people and  certainly trying to help them in in a way that   you know is surgically non-invasive very  minimally invasive and and can be used   sort of out of the box to perform communication  uh as well as other activities of daily living   so it's it's exciting and you know  there's a lot of people coming into the   um into this into this field at the moment which  is which is fantastic and and certainly i think   there's a bright future for for this technology  and the people that will be using it whether they   be the the users themselves or their carers  or their families or whoever it might be   that's brilliant and and i want to stay with  you just um you mentioned there kind of some   of the regulatory pathways and obviously this is  all a journey towards uh commercialization and   and being able to have this available out in the  market and that um you know the 40 million dollars   of investment you just got is people banking on  you to be able to get something in the commercial   market eventually i want you to um kind of just  talk us through a couple of the um the kind of   critical points on that regulatory journey so  far what what did that look like um and yeah i   guess we've got we've got other founders on the  on the call today that are perhaps on a similar   kind of regulatory journey so give us a bit of a  picture of what that's been looking like for you   sure well uh well certainly you know one of the  main things you need to uh to prove is that it's   that it's safe and that you know that's for  for all technology whether it's uh invasive   minimally invasive non-invasive you need to prove  that it that it's safe and that the patients that   it's intended for um you know won't be put at  additional additional uh risk by by having this   technology uh and so that's one of them and the  fda is obviously very big on on making sure that   uh there are a huge amount of tests that need  to be conducted and shown to to demonstrate that   it's safe for implantation uh and once it has been  implanted obviously the the next step is to show   uh that it works that it's reliable and that  it can perform how it's intended to perform and   allow the the user to um communicate with  it for example if that if that's the goal   or to control a prosthetic limb or whatever that  might be so so there's a lot of um a lot of work   you know in the background once you've once  you've made the technology and even once you've   got the surgical procedure right and implanted  it there's a lot of work that needs to go on in   in continuing to to demonstrate and prove that  it's safe and functional and and will continue to   be reliable over the the lifespan of the patient  and i think one of the things that's amazing is um   with all the technologies that the brain machine  faces seem to be achieving is getting commands   out of the brain and what happens at the  other end there's a lot of work also going on   you know how you can make a better technology that  allows people to to use these devices properly so   making robotic limbs and making exoskeletons  in wheelchairs there's a whole whole range of   other applications that people can use that are  they're only saying to be built as well which   is you know which is fantastic so it means you  know the people that are making the implantables   now have a lot more things to connect to so so the  users can control a lot more of their environment   that's super interesting um yeah thinking  about the kind of marketplace of available   technologies that that might need to be there  in the future so for you that the regulatory   in environments kind of a little bit different  for those kind of inter intracortical devices   so ones that go inside the body versus  those using neuro neural decoding like EEG   so you might want to give a  little explanation of of eeg   but what have been some of the significant  milestones in your own commercialization journey   yeah like nick has uh you know uh given details  the intracortical is are very heavy with   regulation right because it's going into the human  body but uh for the EEG which we're leveraging   a head wearable device so it doesn't go  uh into the human body so we're not uh   looking at that length of time and all those  lengthy clinical trials so we envisage is   going to be shorter and in terms of some of the  milestones we've achieved well we've gone from   just concept an idea to uh various prototypes we  have a prototype that runs on a smart glass which   is what we envision in the future something very  lightweight and portable that you can just wear   we also have a version that works on a smartphone  and in the future we hope to add one that works   on your laptop and we also um in order to  lower the barrier of entry because people   as you can imagine ask a lot of questions  about you know is this real or something else   we created a game out of it um that  fortunately won an award at apple uh   worldwide developer conference so it's a brain  controlled game and we also earned a patent   so these are some of the uh milestones that we've  achieved but we also do face some uh barriers and   and challenges as uh most investors still do not  understand the disability landscape very well   and so uh these are still some of the things  we're trying to tackle to move forward yeah that's   brilliant now we've had a question come through  on the chat um asking are these devices suitable   for people with cerebral palsy so um other  than Nick or Beat do you want to take that one yeah another thing i can start off Zuby Beata i i  think in general yes but it really depends on on   the type uh you know certainly for the centroid  and and the technology we're developing in the   first case uh provided they have a uh a functional  brain and and that meaning that they can uh they   can think and and cause the the cells that you was  talking about before to to function um it doesn't   have to be everywhere but just some of their  brain can respond normally and that they can   have intentional thoughts then yes you can you can  acquire these and they can be used to to assist   but but i suppose that there are going to be some  conditions uh where parts of the brain responsible   for arms or limbs may not may not work that might  be okay you might not need that specific region to   be working but but certainly um you know i think  it's it's a case-by-case uh sort of scenario where   their physicians will be able to to assess whether  this is something that would be suitable for them yeah um yeah i think nick stated it perfectly  just um if you know the part of motor cortex that   controls movement is still responsive in a way  that um communicates the person's movement intent   then these kinds of devices could be used um or  or some part of the motor motor system doesn't   necessarily have to be cortical um but as long  as yeah movement is still represented in neural   activity then something like this could work  awesome and we encourage you to put some um   that's for uh for brain machine faces  and brain control and if there are   other issues with other parts of the body  there's there are technologies um you know   many people around here as well that can um  directly uh be involved with the you know the   damaged limb or the part of the the nerve in in  the limb or something like that uh so it doesn't   necessarily need to to come from the brain and  there's a lot of other groups and and a lot of   other research and work that's going on to look  at um you know how you can how you can really   replace anything that's that's lost or damaged  and so the field of biomedical engineering is   certainly taking off and uh you know i think  there's unlimited possibilities in that regard   yeah we've seen some incredible research  happening at brown university where they're   essentially kind of uh taking signals from  the spinal cord and and looking at reinserting   those essentially back into a damaged spinal  cord below where a break might have happened   so it's just there's an incredible um kind of  forefronts i guess for so much of this technology   control bionics is another organization here in  australia that's done some work around taking   any any kind of um signal from a muscle and being  able to turn that into a control button as well   um i guess i wanted to and this one we might  um yes i encourage people to put questions that   they've got um into the q a panel down below and  we'll try and get to as many of those as we can   one of the questions i do want to ask each of you  is if you could just briefly touch on what are   some of the ethical questions that that you think  that we should be asking ourselves in this work do you want to start with that one Zuby   sure um in terms of ethics right  i think we always have to remember   that the piece of technology is to serve the human  right and we always have to do our very best to   put the human first and then in trying to do that  we have to look at the cross section of humanity   um one and it pinches me to even touch on this  is the event that happened at the paralympics   right where the blind athlete was  hit by a self-driving train because   that wasn't considered and so if you think  about the paralympic that should be the haven   for people with disabilities right everything  this real issue have been covered but then the   self-driving train which is great but then this  one angle wasn't covered and you know it was   disastrous so i think in terms of ethics rather  than even trying to think too hard just remember   no matter how great the technology is hey we're  trying to serve humanity first and then b let's   look at all humanity and be inclusive so that's  my take on that that's brilliant thanks Zuby Beata   um yeah just to add on to that i i guess i would  say another thing that needs to be um thought   about carefully is the the fact that a lot of  these technologies right now are meant to be   assistive for people with disabilities restoring  function um but now and then also going forward if   these ever become kind of enhancement technologies  making sure that they're available to everyone   not just people that are wealthy um you know make  sure that you your insurance model includes you   know medicare or medicaid or whatever just um to  make sure whoever needs them is able to get them   that's brilliant thank you nick yeah look i  think what uh Zuby and Beata says spot on we   gotta really make sure as everyone who's working  in this field does that we put the patients first   and we really have their best interest in mind uh  i think there are a lot of ethical issues like you   mentioned that haven't been thought of as Zuby and  yes and certainly time needs to be spent making   sure that all covers all bases are covered where  you know where possible but there are new things   that arise as new technologies arise and i think  as long as the the researchers are aware uh and   continue to be motivated towards helping the the  human condition then then i think uh i think we're   in a good place with with people like this on  the panel who are in charge of this sort of tech um so one of the questions has come through  a little bit more of a technical question   or a couple of these are so how does  your technology deal with signal noise   and particularly for the intracortical  devices so those inside the body   and the signal loss over time due to local  inflammatory response so you might just want   to give a little bit of context about about  what happens when we put foreign objects   inside the human body and i know nick and and  beata you'll have different responses to this i can start that one off um so at Braingate we've  had participants that were implanted for over five   years in whom the device was still working well  enough that the neural signals weren't quite as   beautiful as they were in that example neuron  that i showed you guys earlier um but we can   still get information out of the residual signals  um even though you know there's a little bit of   a gliosis response where the glial cells that  sort of the blue that holds the neurons together   in your brain um tend to kind of wrap around and  protect the rest of the brain from these devices   that we've been planted in in them um it makes it  it makes the signal a little bit smaller over time   but it's still possible to get useful information  out of them um uh what else was i going to say oh   and at Neuralink work um we're working on ways to  make the response this immune response kind of as   minimal as possible and one way we're doing that  is by having um very very flexible electrodes that   they get put in with a very tiny needle  that's a quarter the size of a human hair   the needle is taken back out and then these  tiny little flimsy things that you can't even   really see with the naked eye end up staying  in the brain they move with the brain they're   a little bit more invisible to the brain they can  be coded with molecules that the brain recognizes   as good things and have the brain kind of accept  them more easily that way um so these are some of   the ways in which we're dealing with that and  yeah i'll pass it on to me right next quarter   yeah so our stories are a little bit different  um uh when you put things inside a blood vessel   in ours so our device it goes in through a blood  vessel through a very small sort of sub-millimeter   catheter and when it's in the desired location  the motor cortex then we remove the catheter and   it expands to put the electrodes or the sensors  against the vessel wall to allow blood flow to   to go through the middle um what we found is a  process of endothelialization or the gliosis the   the body's response to devices uh in a blood  vessel it will push it away from the inside of   the blood vessel so the device gets incorporated  into the vessel wall uh what we found um both in   the the preclinical trials and the humans is that  that's actually beneficial for us we the device   uh gets incorporated into the vessel wall where  it sort of anchors and so our signal noise um   improves because there's no movement through  through the middle and and the device is more   stable so so the um fortuitously we've found that  the the body's reaction is actually helping our   signal quality over time and and once it reaches  a point obviously where it's incorporated in the   vessel you know within a couple of weeks then the  signals you know remain and uh we haven't got to   five years yet we our first patient was in august  2019 so we're so only only two years down but   certainly we've seen that the signals remain um as  they did at the two week point from from then on   that's brilliant um and certainly go have a look  at um some of the videos both of neurolink and   and also um synchron um for kind of seeing some  of the things that both piata and nick have   just mentioned another technical question well  they've called it a slightly technical question   from dimitri um from thoughtwide um uh how high  or low do you think that the ceiling for EEG   based BCI is functionally especially with devices  that are wireless um and easy to wear versus those   that are a lab grade capped with amps they've  talked about so again maybe just uh give us a   little bit of context for those that can't imagine  the technology that's just been mentioned there who wants to take that one so if you do you want to take that one nick you go  first yeah i've got a comment i think that there's   there's a lot of different technologies that  will have different benefits to different   different patient groups um obviously if if you're  placing something outside the skull the skull will   act like a a filter and will suppress some of  the activity that you get um but that might be   fine if you only need to have a binary switch to  control some applications then you know that's you   know that's that's one application certain people  might have that uh and indeed some of our patients   um haven't wanted to use all of the electrodes or  sensors we've got in there they're happy with just   getting really good at one or two sensors  or clicks if you will and they've found   that with even with those they can do  a huge amount of uh communication and   web-based activities like shopping and and banking  and financial management and and they've said you   know that's enough i don't need all these other  switches uh for me to you know if it will for   them that person to have benefit and then you go  to Beata where they've you know got got many more   electrodes and sensors and and certainly again um  there'll be different applications for that there   are going to be people that want to control a  huge amount of of information uh whether it's   receiving or sending and so i think a lot of  this technology will have you know a base level   of everyone will be able to do this but there'll  be certain subsets of uh individuals as well as   uh different conditions that might benefit from  uh from each way of addressing the same problem yeah i might just add to that i think that nick  is right in terms of um you know the different   areas of applications but that question also made  me remember one i think it's out of MITmedia a lot   it's called AlterEgo where they actually take  the signals from the throat area um they tap   electrical signals before your voice box actually  issues the sound so you're silently whispering   to yourself so again that's another way of  grabbing the electrical signals out of your head and then we're kind of running uh short of time  now but one other question that we've got there   in q a is uh do you feel it will be disability  assist or performance enhancement that will be   the primary driver driver of BCI progress  in five to ten years time? So Beata do   you want to take that one first? um i think  definitely starting with disability assist   that's been the big driver all this time  and um the fact that um it kind of remained   in academia for so long that um sort of the  intracortical brain computer interface at least   um kind of speaks to the fact that there hasn't  been as big of maybe a push from um from the   the disability community or um i don't know why  it's just kind of stayed in academia for so long   but then um it's been nice that there's been much  more kind of commercial interest in bringing it to   market and i think definitely the fact that it's  going to take that stop along the way is is a   great thing for um for the disability community  and then um whether or not it actually ends   up in the enhancement stage um i'm a little bit  skeptical um there are certain things that i think   we we definitely can do in the near future like  you know add sensory modalities for example that   um for things that already exist like which way is  magnetic north or like seeing into the ultraviolet   range or something like that um but um yeah as for  like writing in really complex information that's   going to be a little bit harder um but definitely  like one of the one of the drivers of both the   um the enhancement and the disability technology  is trying to get to that final enhancement stage Zuby what about you my hope is  my hope is that we can start out   focusing on the disabled um there are 1 billion of  us around the world and largely overlooked right   and you can start looking at the statistics and  you know all kinds of data so that's just my hope   that we can finally focus on this uh group  of people and and get them to climb out of   the very ultra high unemployment rate public rates  and get them to learn and earn so they can become   you know economically independent and contributing  members of society and um you can never really say   never right we don't have a crystal ball of  what will happen 5 ten fifteen years from now   maybe uh the performance enhancement  market will will kick off but my hope   of my prayer is that for now let's leverage  what we have and help those who are in need   that's awesome nick what about you yeah look i  agree i i think certainly um if you look at what's   happened in history with uh leicester plastic  surgery which started as a medical procedure for   for burns and other reasons um you  know once you've got traction with the   um the medical community then you know obviously  the larger community have have taken that up and   spun it in their own way and i think you see the  uh the paralympic games that were just on and   certainly a few years ago um you may recall uh the  blade runner Oscar Pistorius was was wearing sort   of bionic limbs and and wow that guy was fast  like certainly much faster than i was probably   uh equally as fast as some of the the athletes  that that didn't require prosthetics and um i   think they had to slow the legs down so we didn't  go too quick but i think you'll see a time where   uh where some of these bionic replacements uh  are better than our own limbs some of the arms   that have been made by uh in the u.s are arguably  better than than the one i've got now so you know   i think there is going to be a time where where  the technology excuse me improves people to it   to a level that that they're not at yet but uh  but i i can't see that yeah i certainly want to   see that happening for the people that need it in  the first case and i think i imagine that's where   where i'll that's brilliant well the last question  that i that i have for each of you and we'll have   to keep this brief because we're just about out  of time but what's what's one remarkable insight   that you have for for BCI generally and where  it's headed i'm so Beata we'll start with you i'm not sure i would qualify this as a remarkable  insight but my own personal insight um is it's   just kind of my my story of like how i got started  in neuroscience was because i was very interested   in consciousness and how you know brain activity  gives rise to consciousness um and it's an   inherently subjective thing so it's very difficult  to study but now that we're making these brain   computer interfaces and you know implanting them  in human study participants maybe we have a way to   actually start accessing some of these questions  as well because now we we can actually introspect   and see what kind of neural chords their  correlates there are of these subjective phenomena   that's fantastic nick um i think the insight  that i'd like to share was um was from our first   participant when um when he was using the system  firstly you know it was absolutely magic to see a   man sitting there paralyzed controlling something  on the screen but the thing that i didn't   appreciate at the time was um the the people that  benefit from this aren't necessarily the users   only so he was he was obviously benefiting he was  able to control his uh you know his environment um   but but on the on the side note he's his  wife and cara uh she was able to get more   independence knowing that she could now leave his  side to to go out in the garden go down to the   shops um we connected him up with you know so uh  communication tools whatsapp and texting so that   they could always be in contact but she didn't  have to be there and i didn't appreciate it at   the time um and when building this the the  impact that would have on on the carers and   the family and the people that aren't necessarily  the recipients of these sort of technologies so   i think that was that was a big insight for  me and certainly you know lovely to see that   that what we're doing is is more uh we're  further reaching than the uh than the users   or the people that that actually receive  the tech absolutely yeah there's the the uh   also under recognized uh um support community  and carer community that that happens alongside   some parts of the disability community as well  so that's brilliant Zuby we'll finish with you well i think uh my inside will be  the moment so what i mean by that is   um i mean look at the the team you've assembled  here right these are folks at the bleeding edge   pushing technology forward to help humanity  i think this is the right team to do the job   right and create positive impact but then also  um the forum um this is probably one of the first   times remarkable insight has put together a busier  right and so that's great it's an exciting moment   but then um look at the humanity the disability  space from caroline's amazing job of development   500 and i just happened to be in dav i'm in geneva  switzerland to echo her message uh same year   at the un and now two years later we do have  those 500 companies and you move over to we the 15   right and then we move over to plus i n inclusive  innovation network and then there's think and   zoom feature of disability with a list of global  innovators so that's what i mean by this is the   moment right so we are pushing for the technology  and we're also bringing the humans together and so   this is the moment to bring it all together  that's really exciting and really well said Zuby   thank you um so um please join me in thanking our  panelists today we've had Beata and Nick and Zuby   also to taran our auslan interpreter it's  been fantastic having a conversation with you   remarkable is about harnessing technology for  um for to build social economic and inclusion   and so uh for people with disabilities so we we  want to welcome anyone to express interest in   our accelerator program that is open right now  um for our accelerated program running in 2022   today is also RUOK day in australia and are you ok  day while we're waiting on technologies like bci   that might actually be able to assist people who  those of us who do have mental health challenges   one of the things that we can do right today is  to check in with people that we know and love   and to check in and ask if they're doing okay  it's important that we look after ourselves in   this time of need as well we'll be seeking  some of your impact on today's remarkable   insight session as well so if you could leave  us some comments um straight after this webinar   that would be fantastic recording will be  made available as well on remarkable tech's   youtube channel make sure you subscribe to that  this kind of conversation we think is vital um   like Zuby said we we hope that this moment in time  of the bringing together of of people technology   and and where the future of technology and  innovation is headed um is going to be more   inclusive and so we thank you for joining us for  this remarkable insights we look forward to you   joining us for the next remarkable insights  during spark festival next month enjoy the   rest of your day and wherever you are calling  from good evening good morning and good night

2021-09-14

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