Lee Wonhye, Kim Suji, Kim Byeongnam, Lee Chungki, Chung Yong An, Kim Laehyun, Yoo Seung-Schik
Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Incheon, Korea.
Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 Jun 9;12(6):e0178476. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178476. eCollection 2017.
We present non-invasive means that detect unilateral hand motor brain activity from one individual and subsequently stimulate the somatosensory area of another individual, thus, enabling the remote hemispheric link between each brain hemisphere in humans. Healthy participants were paired as a sender and a receiver. A sender performed a motor imagery task of either right or left hand, and associated changes in the electroencephalogram (EEG) mu rhythm (8-10 Hz) originating from either hemisphere were programmed to move a computer cursor to a target that appeared in either left or right of the computer screen. When the cursor reaches its target, the outcome was transmitted to another computer over the internet, and actuated the focused ultrasound (FUS) devices that selectively and non-invasively stimulated either the right or left hand somatosensory area of the receiver. Small FUS transducers effectively allowed for the independent administration of stimulatory ultrasonic waves to somatosensory areas. The stimulation elicited unilateral tactile sensation of the hand from the receiver, thus establishing the hemispheric brain-to-brain interface (BBI). Although there was a degree of variability in task accuracy, six pairs of volunteers performed the BBI task in high accuracy, transferring approximately eight commands per minute. Linkage between the hemispheric brain activities among individuals suggests the possibility for expansion of the information bandwidth in the context of BBI.
我们展示了一种非侵入性方法，该方法可检测个体的单侧手部运动脑活动，并随后刺激另一个体的体感区域，从而实现人类大脑半球之间的远程半球连接。健康参与者被配对为发送者和接收者。发送者执行右手或左手的运动想象任务，源自任一脑半球的脑电图（EEG）μ节律（8 - 10赫兹）的相关变化被编程为将计算机光标移动到出现在计算机屏幕左侧或右侧的目标。当光标到达其目标时，结果通过互联网传输到另一台计算机，并启动聚焦超声（FUS）设备，该设备选择性地且非侵入性地刺激接收者的右手或左手体感区域。小型FUS换能器有效地允许对体感区域独立施加刺激性超声波。刺激引发了接收者手部的单侧触觉感受，从而建立了半球脑对脑接口（BBI）。尽管任务准确性存在一定程度的变异性，但六对志愿者以高精度执行了BBI任务，每分钟传输约八条指令。个体之间半球脑活动的联系表明在BBI背景下信息带宽扩展的可能性。
