The days of attacking aliens with a joystick or keyboard could soon be over thanks to a breakthrough technique through which, a teenager played Space Invaders using only signals from his brain.
The technique used, takes data from the surface of the brain, interprets these signals and converts them to binary data. The boy already had grids implanted to monitor his brain for epilepsy. He was then connected to a computer program that linked the game to these grids. He was then asked to move his hands, talk, and imagine things. They then asked him to play Space Invaders just by moving his hand and tongue and then to imagine those movements without actually performing them.
Eric Leuthardt, a researcher at the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis said;
« "He cleared out the whole Level One basically on brain control. He learned almost instantaneously. We then gave him a more challenging version in two-dimensions and he mastered two levels there playing only with his imagination." »
A couple of years back, Leuthardt and other researchers performed this experiment on four adults, but they wanted to explore evident differences between teenagers and adults.
« “We observed much quicker reaction times in the boy and he had a higher level of detail of control—for instance, he wasn't moving just left and right, but just a little bit left, a little bit right.” » Leuthardt said.
vid link: http://www.livescience.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=brainGame
I think I've read about it a year ago or so.
Really interesting though...