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Decoding the Brain: The Unlimited Possibility of BCI | Zag ElSayed | TEDxVermilionStreet


when I was a teenager my lil sister
Nellie was very young and wasn’t in
school yet try to describe a story on a
sheet of paper she wrote me this little
and give it to me
how cute at this time she didn’t know
how to read or write but she knew
exactly what this waves and scribbled
meant I distinctly remember this event
because it was my first time when I
became interested in how the brain works
this three-pound lump of gelatine is
actually a miraculous thing made up of
millions of neurons and the bit of end
of inner connection between them that
defines who we are allow us to sink
world and dream and actually makes a
brain the ultimate adaptive mechanism as
an organ your brain only needs sugar
oxygen and sleep but at the same time
it’s always thirsty for learning new
stuff especially during the young ages
and our lab in university of louisiana
we’re trying to understand the brain and
the soul and the process of thought in
order to extend its functionality beyond
the human body so we’re trying to
understand the brain and the power of
thought to build a better brain computer
interface or BCI chips this trip
actually capturing the signaling
phenomena of the neuron via electrical
sensors and try to translate them into
commands to control a external device or
computer so it can allow the user to
manage control or mental advice or any
other external weight the main power of
the brain is not only the power of
thinking but actually the pole to adapt
and the brain can adapt on three
different levels chemical structural or
functional for example remember first
time you tried to learn how to ride the
bike is a beginning if it I’m
comfortable and unnatural you will visit
the exhausted
and actually you’ll parent will
exhausted because they have to tie
somehow to keep you from killing
yourself but after a while you started
to get it you were doing it and actually
that feeling that you felt right before
you crashed happened because your brain
was post both boosting some chemicals
the specific group of neurons try to
enhance you with a new learning task two
days later you get to ride the bike but
hold on if each time something is wrong
you are able to perform as well as you
did two days ago you wonder what
happened actually that chemically that
allow you to perform when fades within a
short period of time you all these that
you will have to learn the whole process
all over again but your muscle and
nervous system still remember some of
the learning skills that you learned two
days ago and if you repeat the process
again and again your brain will start to
ultrastructural
so the process called neural plasticity
in addition of generation of endorphine
and other hormones that comes as a
reward for your brain it makes your
brain change its structure to help you
with a new adaptive task
you keep finally keep riding over and
over and if you like for a decent amount
of time you’ll being will start to
dedicate specific neurons for the new
learning task
so overall saluting a bike you brain
makes chemical structural and functional
adjustment till this new learning task
is one just like riding a bike it’s
solid pavement and you will never forget
it as a matter of fact experiments it
shows that you need to practice the
skill at least three years till your
brain makes it permanent for the rest of
your life the center of the brain or
neurons are very primitive they are
responsible for everything that we do
think or dream but at the same time they
are very simple and the function is very
limited but the power comes from the
huge number and the billions of
interconnection between them and the
neurons are connected in a group like
formation if the group is responsible
for specific tasks or specific action
and they communicate together by sending
messages like electrical signal signals
who can visualize these electrical
signals like fireworks across the brain
if the final shape location on time is a
responsible specific task a specific
action it happened all the time it was
happening like now or you’re listening
to this talk and the good signal is that
who can capture the echo of these
fireworks
whose tools in order to understand how
the brain represents surrounding world
and this fireworks actually represent
everything that we know every single
piece of information who has studied
learned listen to all perspectives
dreams memories which actually map is a
whole universe inside your brain and our
lab in the university of louisiana here
we’re trying to develop new techniques
to understand the brain and capture
these fireworks and the best tool and
the most popular and safest one is the
EEG
like the heart EKG but for the brain the
first energy was recorded in 1924 from
the human from a live human brain and
told by dr. Hans Berger lab in Germany
by the way this was his Christmas card
for that year I wonder this guy knew my
little sister so yes I simplify all can
tell us a lot about how the brain
function and few fireworks especially in
the summer night sky is beautiful but
imagine if all the firework locusts were
to fire at the same time not cold and
this what actually happened whenever a
person to get the seizure
it was called fainting and falling
sickness during the 17th century when
Caesar was considered to be a madness or
profession but actually this what
happened in the brain waves whenever a
person gets a seizure and this is how
the transition sound can happen to
anybody
and unfortunately till now the cause of
seizure remains unknown
has anybody here ever exposed deja vu
you know when you seem that you are
relieving the same moment again actually
what you experiencing is a mind to fall
of a micro seizure or a more serious
level people can suffer from epilepsy
phd the repeated seizure syndrome and
can take variety of shapes and forms but
in all the cases the blest of fine work
like messages actually impairs the
person epilepsy affects more than 10% of
a human population worldwide and 95%
happens in the developing world
especially in seniors over 80 and in the
last deal only it resulted in more than
100,000 sudden expected veces especially
on the road when more than 64% 64% of
the auto fatal accidents is caused by
seizure and the real reach of seizure is
much greater than officially documented
because not all seizure can be detected
for cases and not all seizure cases
shows jerking movement of the body
additionally seizure can happen in
infants and patient in coma when the
victim cannot explain what’s happening
all know but the movement will observe
at all but the good news is the only
entity that can truly shows what
happening in the brain is the EEG
and our labs were trying to detect new
techniques to understand what the brain
experiences so several years ago we
started our research lab and actually we
started it with this experiment when we
tried to use a commercial headset to
start to play with the brainwaves and I
developed some interface code so in the
beginning it gets you the base signals
and the baseline to read the information
then you try to remove the facial
expression because they can become like
a noise or called
Maasai artifacts from the brain signals
after why yes and after that the main
experiment happened when my colleague
was asked to perform this hidden command
of these cards by only thinking about
the movement so he had this virtual box
on the interface and he tried to push it
forward by only thinking about the
action the other example here he tried
to make a polka man actually pulled the
box by only using his power torso and
the third example he just was trying to
visualize the rotation movement and
perform it really felt like I was at
that moment and it was very happy by the
way thank you later and the main power
here comes that you can actually explain
any functions that we need by using a
new way of communicating over so others
and controlling artificial limbs who can
actually try to pull new disease and so
on by using the brain computer interface
well even as my professional dreams it
can improve dating apps I mean literally
think about it if you can literally read
her mind
so if it’s a simple why you are not
supporting visa application today not
because they are not that fashionable
but apparently it’s exactly like the
brain it’s not just simple the brain or
the BCI chip that we try to generate or
build actually was built to try to
capture the electrical signal of the
brain adapt to the brain and then
translate them into future commands also
on all try to get get them and try to
predict them in the future and the main
challenge eel is how to build a
lightweight logic that’s smart enough to
adapt to individual use for example here
if you know that to all of us she’s the
same building materials but everyone
fireworks are different so we had to
come up with a new algorithm that can
mimic the same idea of the body immunity
system of dipping viruses so we generate
a new algorithm simplified mathematics
that not only can detect abnormalities
in system but also predict them in the
future so we designed them on a small
chip here and so that’s it done but
actually this is when the interesting
stuff started to happen
apparently the chip was in big trouble
the brain started to confuse the chip as
an edit peripheral to the body and the
brain started to adapt itself to a chip
actually the chip is a brain started to
generate specific tailored commands and
patterns to mindfully do this chip
amazing the student relationship turned
upside down because just for one moment
to forget the true dealing was the
ultimate that mechanism working in a
field will try to stay ahead of the
brain is difficult because the brain is
learning everything faster than you are
we have a long way to go till we fully
understand the brain if it will
be able possible but stick knology
exists that can aid us in this process
so capturing the electrical signal of
the brain and more importantly by
capturing the abnormality of the system
and which we do that you can start
understand the chemical structure and
function causes of mental disabilities
learning disabilities adapt depression
even even absurdity and if you do so you
actually can flee the world from a lot
of pain on so at the end my goal is to
understand the brain and the rest is
just important thank you
[Applause]
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