Non-invasive brain implant could someday translate thoughts into movement

A brain implant developed at U-M uses the body’s skin like a conductor to wirelessly transmit the brain’s neural signals to control a computer, and eventually may be used to reactivate paralyzed limbs.

The implant is called the BioBolt, and unlike other neural interface technologies that establish a connection from the brain to an external device such as a computer, it’s minimally invasive and low power, says principal investigator Euisik Yoon, a professor in the College of Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Currently, the skull must remain open while neural implants are in the head, which makes using them in a patient’s daily life unrealistic, says Kensall Wise, the William Gould Dow Distinguished University professor emeritus in engineering.

BioBolt does not penetrate the cortex and is completely covered by the skin to greatly reduce risk of infection. Researchers believe it’s a critical step toward the Holy Grail of brain-computer interfacing: allowing a paralyzed person to “think” a movement.

“The ultimate goal is to be able to reactivate paralyzed limbs,” by picking the neural signals from the brain cortex and transmitting those signals directly to muscles, says Wise, who also is founding director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Wireless Integrated MicroSystems (WIMS ERC). That technology is years away, the researchers say.

Another promising application for the BioBolt is controlling epilepsy, and diagnosing certain diseases like Parkinson’s.

— Laura Bailey, News Service

Women drivers involved more than men in certain kinds of crashes

While men and women often disagree about which gender has better driving skills, a new study by U-M may shed some light on the debate.

Using data from a nationally representative sample of police-reported crashes from 1988-2007, Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the U-M Transportation Research Institute studied the gender effects in six different crash scenarios (based on crash angles, direction of approach and speed). These two-vehicle crash scenarios included various maneuvers in which one vehicle turned in front of the other, one vehicle side-swiped the other or both vehicles collided head-on.

“The likelihood that a given driver will be involved in a two-vehicle crash depends on a variety of driver, vehicular and environmental factors,” says Sivak, research professor at UMTRI. “There are three dominant driver-related factors, including the probability of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, one’s own driving skills and the driving skills of the other driver involved.”

Sivak and Schoettle compared the actual frequencies of different combinations of involved male and female drivers in the six crash scenarios with the expected frequencies if there were no gender differences. The expected frequencies were based on annual distance driven for personal travel by male and female drivers.

Because men drive about 60 percent of those annual miles and women drive 40 percent, men are expected to be involved in a higher percentage of crashes for each scenario, road conditions and driving skills being equal.

But the researchers found that crashes involving two female drivers were overrepresented in five of the six crash scenarios, including two by at least 50 percent more and two others by more than 25 percent greater than what was expected.

— Bernie DeGroat, News Service

Poll: Michigan citizens, officials agree local government should tackle global warming

A large majority of Michigan citizens and local government leaders agree that local governments have a responsibility to help reduce global warming, a new U-M survey says.

The view was shared by 70 percent of the citizens and 68 percent of the local officials, although the officials’ opinions were divided about the seriousness of global warming, says the poll by the U-M Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP).

The study is unique because it combined findings from two different partnering surveys: one focused on Michigan’s citizens and another focused on Michigan’s local government leaders. The findings are significant because global warming is a relatively new issue. It has been unclear whether citizens and their leaders believe they should help fight the problem at the local level or leave it up to the state and federal governments.

“This study firmly establishes that most Michiganians and their local leaders share a common view that reducing global warming is a public responsibility to be addressed at all levels of government, including the local level,” says Brian Jacob, professor of public policy and director of CLOSUP.

Another key finding of the survey is that the local leaders’ opinions did not vary according to the location or size of their communities, according to the center, part of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Although the poll’s respondents generally agreed that local governments have a responsibility in the battle against global warming, a large majority also said that the state and federal governments should play a role, too.

However, local leaders were divided about the seriousness of global warming. The poll said 52 percent believe that it’s either a “very serious” or a “somewhat serious” problem. Thirty-nine percent said it was either “not too serious” or “not a problem” at all.

— William Foreman, News Service

Brain training can boost kids’ intelligence

Children who “train” their brain to increase memory also can boost their abilities to solve problems and reason, a new U-M study indicates.

Those abilities, which are called fluid intelligence, are thought to be predictors of educational success. Researchers have long debated whether fluid intelligence can be sustainably improved by training.

In a study involving 62 elementary and middle school children from southeast Michigan, the researchers tested whether training aimed at boosting working memory, which allows people to store and retrieve small amounts of information over brief periods, can improve fluid intelligence. Susanne Jaeggi, Martin Buschkuehl, John Jonides and Priti Shah, all researchers in the Department of Psychology, conducted the study.

The authors assigned students to one of two groups that trained for a month — five times a week and 15 minutes per session — on computerized tasks resembling video games. While one group trained on a task that engaged working memory, the other group exercised general knowledge and vocabulary skills.

Three months after training ended, the children who did well on the working memory game performed better on tests of fluid intelligence, compared with those who did not train as well or those who prepared with general knowledge and vocabulary.

“Individual differences in training influenced the children’s performance on the intelligence tests,” Jaeggi says.

A difference could involve a child with a large training gain improved more in fluid intelligence because he started off with lower ability and had more room for improvement. Another difference could be the finding that children who did not benefit from the training found the working memory intervention too difficult and required too much effort, were easily frustrated, and became disengaged.

The researchers now are investigating whether this intervention also might be beneficial for children with working memory and attention deficits. In addition, they are working on an intervention, which easily can be implemented in schools and other educational settings.

The findings appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

— Jared Wadley, News Service

Nanoparticles may help inhibit Alzheimer’s disease, other neurodegenerative disorders

Nanoparticles of the right dimensions and shape may be the key in combating the plaque that destroys neurons and leads to symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a new report shows.

U-M chemical engineering professor Nicholas Kotov says nanotechnology can attract and capture the longer fibrils that are known to form plaque related to neurodegenerative disorders.

“Both amyloid peptides and nanoparticles exhibit a strong ability to self-assemble into fibrils,” Kotov says. “We were open to any possible effect of nanoparticles on the amyloid fibrillation. We were very pleased to see amazing inhibitory effect on amyloids fibrillation, which opens the door for new approaches to the development of drugs to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.”

By introducing tetrahedral nanoparticle that were comparable in size with growing fibrils, he discovered that the dangerous plaque readily bonded to them, and their geometry was strongly distorted. Such drastic change in shape results in complete inhibition of their further fibrillation.

Typical Alzheimer drugs bond to amyloid peptides in 1:1 ratio. This is known to be inefficient. The nanoparticles can inhibit the amyloid peptide fibrillation in minute quantities with much greater efficiency. One nanoparticle can capture more than 100 amyloid peptides. This high efficiency of fibrillation inhibition makes nanoparticles similar to some proteins that human body uses to protect itself against the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

The implication here is that if a likely human compatible particle, for example, were introduced then the effect could help clear, or at least contain, the growth of the debilitating plaque. Cadmium is toxic to humans, but the revelations from this work indicate a big step forward in combating diseases like Alzheimer’s. Kotov’s laboratory is working toward engineering of such nanoparticles and better understanding their metabolism.

The paper is called “Mechanism of Fibrillation Inhibition of Amyloid Peptides by Inorganic Nanoparticles Reveals Functional Similarities with Proteins” and is published in the current journal Angewandte Chemie.

— Matt Nixon, College of Engineering

Tags:

• archive