The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will fund six organizations through the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology program (abbreviated "N3" and translated as "Next Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology"), first announced in March 2018 of the year. The program will include Battelle Memorial Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Rice University and Teledyne Scientific, which have their own teams of scientists and researchers in the development of bidirectional brain-computer interfaces. DARPA expects that these technologies will in the future allow skilled military personnel to directly control active cyber defense systems and swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as use them to work with computer systems in complex multi-tasking missions.
“DARPA is preparing for a future where the combination of unmanned systems, artificial intelligence and cyber operations can lead to situations that require too fast decision speed to effectively deal with them without the help of modern technology,” said Dr. Al Emondi (Dr. Al Emondi), program manager N3. "By creating an accessible brain-machine interface that does not require surgery to use, DARPA can provide the Army with a tool that allows mission commanders to meaningfully participate in dynamic operations that take place at ultra-fast speeds."
Over the past 18 years, DARPA has regularly demonstrated increasingly sophisticated neurotechnologies that rely on surgically implanted electrodes to interact with the central or peripheral nervous system. For example, the Agency has demonstrated technologies such as the mental control of prosthetic limbs and the restoration of a sense of touch for their users, a technology to alleviate intractable neuropsychiatric diseases such as depression, and a method to improve and restore memory. Because of the inherent risks of brain surgery, these technologies have so far been used to a limited extent in volunteers with a clinical need for them.
In order for the army to benefit from neurotechnology, non-surgical applications are needed, since it is obvious that at the moment mass surgical interventions among the military commanders do not look like a good idea. Military technology will also be of great benefit to ordinary people. By eliminating the need for surgery, N3 projects expand the pool of potential patients who could access treatments such as deep brain stimulation to treat neurological conditions.
Participants in the N3 program use a variety of approaches in their research to get information from the brain and relay it back. Some projects use optics, others use acoustics and electromagnetism. Some teams are developing completely non-invasive interfaces that are entirely outside the human body, other teams are exploring slightly invasive technologies using nanotransducers that can be temporarily non-surgically delivered to the brain to improve signal resolution and accuracy.
- A team from the Battelle Institute, led by Dr. Gaurav Sharma, aims to develop a minimally invasive system that includes an external transceiver and electromagnetic nanotransducers that are non-surgically delivered to neurons of interest. Nanotransducers will convert electrical signals from neurons into magnetic signals that can be recorded and processed by an external transceiver, and vice versa, to enable bi-directional communication.
- Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, led by Dr. Pulkit Grover, are aiming to develop a completely non-invasive device that uses an acousto-optical approach to receive signals from the brain and electrical fields to send them back to specific neurons. The team will use ultrasonic waves to guide light inside the brain to detect neural activity. To transmit information to the brain, scientists plan to use the non-linear response of neurons to electric fields to provide local stimulation of target cells.
- A team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, led by Dr. David Blodgett, is developing a non-invasive, coherent optical system for reading information from the brain. The system will measure changes in the length of the optical signal in the nervous tissue, which is directly correlated with neuronal activity.
- The PARC team, led by Dr. Krishnan Thyagarajan, aims to develop a non-invasive acoustic-magnetic device to send information to the brain. Their approach combines ultrasonic waves with magnetic fields to generate localized electrical currents for neuromodulation. The hybrid approach allows for modulation in deeper areas of the brain.
- A Rice University team led by Dr. Jacob Robinson is aiming to develop a minimally invasive bidirectional neural interface. To obtain information from the brain, diffuse optical tomography will be used to determine neuronal activity by measuring the scattering of light in neural tissue, and for signaling to the brain, the team plans to use a magnetic genetic approach to make neurons sensitive to magnetic fields.
- The Teledyne team, led by Dr. Patrick Connolly, aims to develop a completely non-invasive, integrated device that uses optically pumped magnetometers to detect small, localized magnetic fields that correlate with neuronal activity and uses focused ultrasound to transmit information.
Throughout the program, researchers will draw on information provided by independent legal and ethical experts who have agreed to participate in N3 and explore the potential for military and civilian applications of new technologies. In addition, federal regulators are also working with DARPA to help scientists better understand when and under what conditions their devices can be tested on humans.
“If the N3 program is successful, we will have wearable neural interface systems that can connect to the brain from a distance of only a few millimeters, taking neurotechnology beyond the clinic and making it more accessible for practical use for national security purposes,” says Emondi. “Similar to how military personnel put on protective and tactical equipment, in the future they will be able to put on a headset with a neural interface and use the technology for the purposes they need, and then simply put the device aside at the end of the mission.”
Source: 3dnews.ru