Positive Technology Journal

7-8-9 February 2007 Geneva, Switzerland. From the LIFT conference website 

LIFT is a gathering of talented observers, explorers, and builders who discuss the current challenges and creative solutions presented by emerging technologies. LIFT is three days to face cutting edge business models, bold predictions, radical thinking, and get new ideas to inject into your own part of the planet.

LIFT has a simple goal: connect people who are passionate about new applications of technology and propel their conversations into the broader world to improve life and work.

Who will talk? Adam Greenfield, Frédéric Kaplan, Sampo Karjalainen, Anne Galloway, Paola Ghillani, Julian Bleecker, Daniel Kaplan, Christophe Guignard, Jan Christophe Zoels, Colin Henderson, Nathan Eagle, Bernino Lind, Lee Bryant, Daniela Cerqui, Jan Chipchase, Beth Krasna, Régine Debatty, Stephanie Hannon, Pierre Chappaz, and many others.

The event will be held at the Geneva International Conference Center. It is organized by a group of international practitioners.

Zack Lynch (Brainwaves) has announced the launch of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization:

The Neurotechnology Industry Organization (NIO) is “a non-profit trade association that represents a broad spectrum of companies involved in neurotechnology (drugs, devices and diagnostics), neuroscience research centers and brain disease advocacy groups across the United States and the world. NIO’s mission is to accelerate cures for brain and nervous system diseases by promoting the neurotechnology industry’s progress, advocating the industry’s position to government officials, and providing business development services to its members”

PT wishes you good luck for your organization, Zack!

Error mapping controller: a closed loop neuroprosthesis controlled by artificial neural networks  

Authors: Alessandra Pedrocchi, Simona Ferrante, Elena De Momi and Giancarlo Ferrigno

Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, Oct 25 2006

Background: The design of an optimal neuroprostheses controller and its clinical use presents several challenges. First, the physiological system is characterized by highly inter-subjects varying properties and also by non stationary behaviour with time, due to conditioning level and fatigue. Secondly, the easiness to use in routine clinical practice requires experienced operators. Therefore, feedback controllers, avoiding long setting procedures, are required. Methods: The error mapping controller (EMC) here proposed uses artificial neural networks (ANNs) both for the design of an inverse model and of a feedback controller. A neuromuscular model is used to validate the performance of the controllers in simulations. The EMC performance is compared to a Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) included in an anti wind-up scheme (called PIDAW) and to a controller with an ANN as inverse model and a PID in the feedback loop (NEUROPID). In addition tests on the EMC robustness in response to variations of the Plant parameters and to mechanical disturbances are carried out. Results: The EMC shows improvements with respect to the other controllers in tracking accuracy, capability to prolong exercise managing fatigue, robustness to parameter variations and resistance to mechanical disturbances. Conclusion: Different from the other controllers, the EMC is capable of balancing between tracking accuracy and mapping of fatigue during the exercise. In this way, it avoids overstressing muscles and allows a considerable prolongation of the movement. The collection of the training sets does not require any particular experimental setting and can be introduced in routine clinical practice.

Long-term motor cortex plasticity induced by an electronic neural implant

Nature advance online publication 22 October 2006 | doi:10.1038/nature05226

Authors: Andrew Jackson, Jaideep Mavoori and Eberhard E. Fetz

It has been proposed that the efficacy of neuronal connections is strengthened when there is a persistent causal relationship between presynaptic and postsynaptic activity. Such activity-dependent plasticity may underlie the reorganization of cortical representations during learning, although direct in vivo evidence is lacking. Here we show that stable reorganization of motor output can be induced by an artificial connection between two sites in the motor cortex of freely behaving primates. An autonomously operating electronic implant used action potentials recorded on one electrode to trigger electrical stimuli delivered at another location. Over one or more days of continuous operation, the output evoked from the recording site shifted to resemble the output from the corresponding stimulation site, in a manner consistent with the potentiation of synaptic connections between the artificially synchronized populations of neurons. Changes persisted in some cases for more than one week, whereas the output from sites not incorporated in the connection was unaffected. This method for inducing functional reorganization in vivo by using physiologically derived stimulus trains may have practical application in neurorehabilitation after injury.

Via KurzweilAI.net

An implantable silicon chip that faithfully mimics the neural circuitry of a real retina could lead to better bionic eyes for those with vision loss and would remove the need for a camera and external computer.

The top image shows the raw output of the retina chip, the middle one a picture processed from it and the third shows how a moving face would appear.

The chip, created by University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University researchers, measures 3.5 x 3.3 millimeters and contains 5760 silicon phototransistors, which take the place of light-sensitive neurons in a living retina. These are connected up to 3600 transistors, which mimic the nerve cells that process light information and pass it on to the brain for higher processing. There are 13 different types of transistor, each with slightly different performance, mimicking different types of actual nerve cells.

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