This week in our news roundup: the Discovery Channel highlights how the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute is using single unit recording to achieve greater accuracy and control with brain computer interfaces; an EEG headset to help prevent strokes has been developed in Israel; measuring pleasure stimuli using a consumer EEG headset from neurofeedback company MyndPlay; and beatboxing as seen through an MRI.

1// Using single unit recording to achieve greater control with a BCI

The team who helped a woman lift a cup using a brain computer interface, at the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute, are now working on a second study that uses single unit recording. What is single unit recording? This is a small grid in the brain that allows researchers to record activity from individual neurons, to achieve an even greater degree of control and accuracy of movement than the first study allowed. For a great description about some of the innovations from UPMC, from one of the researchers involved, check out the video below

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In the second of this 2-part interview commentary on the research project Bicameral Music, Vaughan Macefield talks with InteraXon about his interest in performance, dance, and studying the nervous system.

In October 2012, Erin Gee announced a collaboration with neurophysiologist Vaughan Macefield (Australia) and roboticist Dr. Damith Herath (MARCS Institute) called ‘Bicameral Music’. Bicameral Music is a performance that Gee describes as combining robotics, technology and raw emotion. The team has been researching and mapping raw emotion, translating electric currents in the brain into a decipherable auditory experience. The end goal of their research is a symphony, performed live in Montreal, in 2013

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While we were in Las Vegas debuting Muse to the world, some amazing things were happening in the world of BCI

Like this : research at the School of Medicine at Tsinghua University shows that it will one day be feasible to implement a minimally invasive brain computer interface procedure.

And: incorporating P300 (a process that reflects an individuals neural response to certain stimuli) in assistive gaming is a popular research topic right now. This month a paper was released that suggested ways to improve flexibility and accuracy in a BCI-controlled game.

The work of our colleagues in advancing BCI research continues to amaze us! We’re fortunate to get a chance to write about it here every week and share it with you.

We got a lot of questions about brain computer interfacing while we were at CES. Is Muse a BCI, and how is Muse different from clinical BCI set-ups? Even while this blog post isn’t directly about Muse, one researcher at the Qatar Assistive Technology Center gives a great definition and break down of what a BCI is, and how it differs from consumer products on the market today. Check it out here…

This week in our news roundup: Scientific American releases clips of very aleatoric brainwave music recorded simultaneously using EEG and fMRI (avant garde music aficionados, please put your hand up); University of California at Berkley’s study on brain mapping is now online in an interactive form; NeuroGaming announces dates for their 2013 conference, a hybrid gaming and BCI expo in San Francisco Continue reading →

We’re writing this early in the morning from a tiny hotel room, on the Las Vegas strip, on the last day on CES 2013.

This week we debuted Muse at CES, along with previews of our suite of brain training games and exercises, the Brain Health System. Continue reading →