Hitachi: Move the Train With Your Brain

Hitachi, Ltd. researcher Akiko Obata wearing a head gear makes a model train run while her colleague Kei Utsugi checks a monitor screen showing a map of the blood flow in her brain during a demonstration of a new technology that reads brain activity and lets you control everyday objects without lifting a finger at Hitachi's research lab in Hatoyama, near Tokyo, Wednesday, June 20, 2007. The "brain-machine interface," developed by Hitachi, analyzes slight changes in the brain's blood flow to detect brain motion and translate it into electric signals. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi) (Shizuo Kambayashi - AP)

Since 2005, Hitachi has sold a device based on optical topography that monitors brain activity in paralyzed patients so they can answer simple questions _ for example, by doing mental calculations to indicate "yes" or thinking of nothing in particular to indicate "no."

"We are thinking of various kinds of applications," project leader Hideaki Koizumi said. "Locked-in patients can speak to other people by using this kind of brain machine interface."

A key advantage to Hitachi's technology is that sensors don't have to physically enter the brain. Earlier technologies developed by U.S. companies like Neural Signals Inc. required implanting a chip under the skull.

Still, major stumbling blocks remain.

Size is one issue, though Hitachi has developed a prototype compact headband and mapping machine that together weigh only about two pounds.

Another would be to tweak the interface to more accurately pick up on the correct signals while ignoring background brain activity.

Any brain-machine interface device for widespread use would be "a little further down the road," Koizumi said.

He added, however, that the technology is entertaining in itself and could easily be applied to toys.

"It's really fun to move a model train just by thinking," he said.