In early April, Adam Wilson posted a status update on the social networking Web site Twitter — just by thinking about it.
Just 23 characters long, his message, "using EEG to send tweet," demonstrates a natural, manageable way in which "locked-in" patients can couple brain-computer interface technologies with modern communication tools.
View and download a video of Wilson using the brain-computer interface to post to Twitter at http://nitrolab.engr.wisc.edu/media/P3Twitter.mov
Patients with schizophrenia are able to correctly see through an illusion known as the ‘hollow mask’ illusion, probably because their brain disconnects ‘what the eyes see’ from what ‘the brain thinks it is seeing’, according to a joint UK and German study published in the journal NeuroImage. The findings shed light on why cannabis users may also be less deceived by the illusion whilst on the drug.
By combining nanoparticles with a scorpion venom compound already being investigated for treating brain cancer, University of Washington researchers
found they could cut the spread of cancerous cells by 98 percent, compared to 45 percent for the scorpion venom alone.
"People talk about the treatment being more effective with nanoparticles but they don’t know how much, maybe 5 percent or 10 percent," said Miqin Zhang, professor of materials science and engineering. "This was quite a surprise to us." She is lead author of a study recently published in the journal Small.
EurekAlert!