Patients play by power of thought

Using thought alone and with electrodes placed on the surface of the brain, four volunteers were able to control a simple video game, US researchers report.

Simply by thinking the word "move", the volunteers played the game.

"We are using pure imagination. These people are not moving their limbs," said Eric Leuthardt, a neurosurgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St Louis who worked on the study.

Their findings add to work being done at several centres aimed at finding ways to help people control computers or machines using brainpower alone. People paralysed by disease or accidents could use such devices to work, read and write and even move around.

Dr Leuthardt said they tested four patients with epilepsy.

The patients have their skulls opened and the electrodes placed on the surface of the brain to find out where their seizures are originating, so the connections in that area can be cut in the hope of a cure.

Writing in the Journal of Neural Engineering, Dr Leuthardt and Daniel Moran, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St Louis, said the patients learned in minutes how to control a computer cursor.

"They achieved between 74 and 100 per cent accuracy, with one patient hitting 33 out of 33 targets correctly in a row."

•	Patients play by power of thought Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), Wednesday, June 16, 2004 Byline: Reuters

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