Merging AI With Targeted Electrical Brain Stimulation to Improve Specific Human Brain Functions

AHA Publisher — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 07:00:18 +0000

University of Minnesota Medical School via News-Medical – In a pilot human study, researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital show it is possible to improve specific human brain functions related to self-control and mental flexibility by merging artificial intelligence with targeted electrical brain stimulation. Alik Widge, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry and member of the Medical Discovery Team on Addiction at the U of M Medical School, is the senior author of the research published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. The findings come from a human study conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston among 12 patients undergoing brain surgery for epilepsy -; a procedure that places hundreds of tiny electrodes throughout the brain to record its activity and identify where seizures originate. In this study, Widge collaborated with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Sydney Cash, MD, PhD, an expert in epilepsy research; and Darin Dougherty, MD, an expert in clinical brain stimulation. Together, they identified a brain region -; the internal capsule -; that improved patients’ mental function when stimulated with small amounts of electrical energy. That part of the brain is responsible for cognitive control -; the process of shifting from one thought pattern or behavior to another, which is impaired in most mental illnesses. “An example might include a person with depression who just can’t get out of a ‘stuck’ negative thought. Because it is so central to mental illness, finding a way to improve it could be a powerful new way to treat those illnesses,” Widge said. The team developed algorithms, so that after stimulation, they could track patients’ cognitive control abilities, both from their actions and directly from their brain activity. The controller method provided boosts of stimulation whenever the patients were doing worse on a laboratory test of cognitive control. “This system can read brain activity, ‘decode’ from that when a patient is having difficulty, and apply a small burst of electrical stimulation to the brain to boost them past that difficulty. The analogy I often use is an electric bike. When someone’s pedaling but having difficulty, the bike senses it and augments it. We’ve made the equivalent of that for human mental function.” Alik Widge, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry, U of M Medical School The study is the first to show that: A specific human mental function linked to mental illness can be reliably enhanced using precisely targeted electrical stimulation; There are specific sub-parts of the internal capsule brain structure that are particularly effective for cognitive enhancement; and A closed-loop algorithm used as a controller was twice as effective than stimulating at random times. Some of the patients had significant anxiety in addition to their epilepsy. When given the cognitive-enhancing stimulation, they reported that their anxiety got better, because they were more able to shift their thoughts away from their distress and focus on what they wanted. Widge says that this suggests this method could be used to treat patients with severe and medication-resistant anxiety, depression or other disorders. “This could be a totally new approach in treating mental illness. Instead of trying to suppress symptoms, we could give patients a tool that lets them take control of their own minds,” Widge said. “We could put them back in the driver’s seat and let them feel a new sense of agency.” The research team is now preparing for clinical trials. Because the target for improving cognitive control is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for deep brain stimulation, Widge says this research can be done with existing tools and devices -; once a trial is formally approved -; and the translation of this care to current medical practice could be rapid. “The wonderful thing about these findings is that we are now in a position to conduct clinical trials to further demonstrate effectiveness and then hopefully move to helping treatment-resistant patients who are in desperate need for additional interventions to treat their illnesses,” Dougherty said. To read the original article click here.

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Electrical Stimulation Could Restore Vision in Blind People

AHA Publisher — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 07:00:40 +0000

University of Zurich via News-Medical Net – In a project under Horizon 2020, researchers from seven European organizations will examine how the vision of visually impaired people can be restored using electrical stimulation of the brain. The project is being coordinated by the University of Zurich and supported by the European Union with funding of 4 million euros. If a project receives funding from the European Union, it must involve excellent science in innovative and promising interdisciplinary research fields that provide new and relevant ideas for industry and society. The international Neural Active Visual Prosthetics for Restoring Function project meets all these criteria and has been awarded an EU research grant totaling 4 million euros over four years. The project will kick off on 1 September 2020 and is being coordinated by Prof. Shih-Chii Liu at the Institute of Neuroinformatics of the University of Zurich. Working in interdisciplinary teams from seven European universities and institutions with complementary expertise in computational, systems and clinical neuroscience, materials engineering, microsystems design, and deep learning, the project will develop technology to restore the vision of blind people through electrical stimulation of the brain. Close Interdisciplinary Cooperation The aim of the project is to develop a neuroprosthesis with thousands of electrodes driven by adaptive machine learning algorithms for a new brain-computer interfacing technology. “We want to create a novel neuroprosthesis system that is lightweight, robust and portable, and which will remain effective for decades,” explains Shih-Chii Liu. Current systems only stimulate a small set of neurons in the brain, and interfaces have longevity of only a few months. Liu is convinced that the project will succeed in its goals: “All the partners have long-time experience in their respective fields, so the required background knowledge is already in place. The breakthroughs will come with the planned larger-scale efforts and partner interactions in this project.” The challenge will be coordinating the expected breakthroughs across multiple disciplines. Establishing Innovation These breakthroughs include innovative approaches for stimulation with high-electrode-count interfacing with the visual cortex. For this, thin flexible probes are needed that cause minimal tissue damage as well as new electrode coatings and novel microchip methods. The researchers will also channel the stimulation currents to many thousands of electrodes and monitor neuronal activity in higher cortical areas. Breakthroughs are also expected when it comes to artificial neural networks trained by deep learning, which will only extract the most relevant visual information from a camera input to enable blind individuals to recognize objects and facial expressions and navigate through unfamiliar environments. These networks will transform the camera footage into stimulation patterns that drive the neurons in a way that the blind person can interpret. This is the only way that the signals can be processed and passed on. At the same time, eye tracking will be used to improve perception in a closed-loop approach. The Algorithm Translates Stimulation Patterns In addition to coordinating the project, the University of Zurich is also contributing to its technological expertise. The neuroinformatics team of Shih-Chii Liu and Tobi Delbruck will be working with consortium partners to develop power-efficient neuromorphic deep learning hardware and algorithms. The network implemented on the neuromorphic hardware will translate camera input into stimulation patterns to drive the stimulation electrodes. This research project is important because it lays ground-breaking work for constructing a new brain neuroprosthesis and brings added benefits to other neuroprosthesis research.” Shih-Chii Liu, Professor, Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich The involved researchers hope that the project will raise Europe’s still relatively low profile in this research field. To read the original article click here.

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Merging AI With Targeted Electrical Brain Stimulation to Improve Specific Human Brain Functions

Electrical Stimulation Could Restore Vision in Blind People