CAREER: Brain-Tongue-Computer Interfacing

职业：脑-舌-计算机接口

• 批准号: 0953107
• 负责人: Maysam Ghovanloo
• 金额: $ 51.63万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-03-01 至 2018-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0953107&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Brain; Tongue; Computer; Interfacing

The PI's long-term research plans involve exploring new pathways to the human central nervous system (CNS) in order to expand our knowledge about this highly complex system and understand how it works, and developing innovative technologies and research tools that will enable direct or indirect communication with the CNS through such pathways. In particular, he is keen to utilize and evaluate new interfacing technologies in devices that will help individuals who suffer from chronic disabilities and neurological diseases, such as blindness, deafness, and paralysis to improve and extend their quality of life. With these general goals in mind, the PI will in this project focus on exploring the use of voluntary tongue motion as a substitute for some of the functions traditionally performed by the arms and hands in personal environmental control. This has not been possible in the past absent access to tongue motion without impeding the tongue's key roles in swallowing, respiration, and speech. The PI has previously developed and successfully tested a new wireless, unobtrusive, and wearable technology he calls the Tongue Drive System (TDS), to indicate tongue position in real time within certain user-defined locations in the oral space. Building upon the TDS prototype, he will explore whether the inherent characteristics of the tongue and its rich motor capabilities can be harnessed as an intermediary pathway to the human brain. In other words, he will seek to create a Brain-Tongue-Computer Interface (BTCI) by enhancing the functionality of the TDS hardware, signal processing algorithms, and GUI software to support a large number of choices that will be simultaneously available to users, in addition to the proportional control capability that is currently employed to facilitate navigation and computer access. The PI will conduct experiments to evaluate the performance, usability, and acceptability of the BCTI platform, and will employ it to achieve a fundamental understanding of human factors associated with voluntary tongue motions. Finally, the PI will combine his real time 3-D tongue tracking technology with multi-channel wireless neural recording to explore the relationship between unconstrained tongue movements and whole muscle/single motor unit activities in speech, respiration, and swallowing without any bodily restraints.Broader Impacts: Individuals who are severely disabled as a result of various causes from spinal cord injuries to stroke, cerebral palsy, and ALS find it extremely difficult to carry out everyday tasks without continuous help. This research will ultimately transform the lives of many persons with severe disabilities, by helping them live active, self-supportive, and productive lives. Solutions such as the BTCI may also help reduce healthcare and assisted-living costs by relieving the burden on family members and dedicated caregivers. Utilization of the tongue's motion as an untapped human motor modality in command, control, and navigation tasks involves costs and benefits which are at present unknown; quantitative analysis of human performance in concurrently conducted sensory, motor, and cognitive tasks, both in the presence and absence of tongue motions, is likely to bring about new scientific discoveries in human system integration. The PI's 3-D tongue tracking technology will also impact speech/language therapy, as well as the treatment of communication and sleep disorders that involve tongue motion. The PI will explore use of the BTCI technology in educational settings for children with special needs through programs such as Tools for Life, and will also conduct outreach efforts to expose K-12 students to facts about the CNS, its associated impairments, and different ways to address those problems with engineering solutions.

PI的长期研究计划包括探索人类中枢神经系统（CNS）的新途径，以扩大我们对这个高度复杂系统的了解，并了解它是如何工作的，并开发创新技术和研究工具，通过这些途径与CNS直接或间接通信。 特别是，他热衷于利用和评估设备中的新接口技术，这些技术将帮助患有慢性残疾和神经系统疾病的人，如失明，耳聋和瘫痪，以改善和延长他们的生活质量。 考虑到这些总体目标，PI将在本项目中专注于探索使用自愿舌头运动作为传统上由手臂和手在个人环境控制中执行的一些功能的替代品。 这在过去是不可能的，因为在不妨碍舌头在吞咽、呼吸和言语中的关键作用的情况下，无法获得舌头的运动。 PI之前已经开发并成功测试了一种新的无线，不显眼的，可穿戴技术，他称之为舌头驱动系统（TDS），以指示舌头位置在真实的时间在某些用户定义的位置在口腔空间。 在TDS原型的基础上，他将探索舌头的固有特征及其丰富的运动能力是否可以作为通往人类大脑的中介途径。 换句话说，他将寻求通过增强TDS硬件、信号处理算法和GUI软件的功能来创建脑-舌-机接口（BTCI），以支持用户同时可用的大量选择，以及目前用于促进导航和计算机访问的比例控制能力。 PI将进行实验以评估BCTI平台的性能、可用性和可接受性，并将利用该平台对与舌头自主运动相关的人为因素进行基本了解。 最后，PI将结合联合收割机的真实的三维舌头跟踪技术和多通道无线神经记录，探索无约束的舌头运动与语言、呼吸和吞咽中的整个肌肉/单个运动单元活动之间的关系。更广泛的影响：由于各种原因导致严重残疾的人，从脊髓损伤到中风，脑瘫，ALS患者发现，如果没有持续的帮助，他们很难完成日常任务。 这项研究将最终改变许多严重残疾人的生活，帮助他们过上积极、自立和富有成效的生活。 BTCI等解决方案还可以通过减轻家庭成员和专职护理人员的负担来帮助降低医疗保健和辅助生活成本。 利用舌头的运动作为一个未开发的人类运动模式的命令，控制和导航任务涉及的成本和效益，这是目前未知的，定量分析人类的表现在同时进行的感觉，运动和认知任务，无论是在存在和不存在的舌头运动，很可能会带来新的科学发现，在人类系统集成。 PI的3D舌头跟踪技术也将影响语音/语言治疗，以及涉及舌头运动的沟通和睡眠障碍的治疗。 PI将通过“生活工具”等项目，探索BTCI技术在教育环境中对有特殊需要的儿童的使用，并将开展外展工作，使K-12学生了解有关CNS的事实，其相关的损伤，以及通过工程解决方案解决这些问题的不同方法。