With mind-reading speller, free-for-all conversations that are silent and still

Researchers have come up with a device that may enable people who are completely unable to speak or move at all to nevertheless manage unscripted back-and-forth conversation. The key to such silent and still communication is the first real-time, brain-scanning speller.

 
The new technology builds on groundbreaking earlier uses of fMRI brain scans to assess consciousness in people described as being in an unconscious, vegetative state and to enable them to answer yes and no questions. fMRI (or functional magnetic resonance imaging) is typically used for clinical and research purposes to track brain activity by measuring blood flow.

"The work of Adrian Owen and colleagues led me to wonder whether it might even become possible to use fMRI, mental tasks, and appropriate experimental designs to freely encode thoughts, letter-by-letter, and therewith enable back-and-forth communication in the absence of motor behavior," said Bettina Sorger of Maastricht University in The Netherlands.

The new evidence shows that the answer to that thought question is yes. Sorger's team came up with a letter-encoding technique that requires almost no pre-training. Participants in their study voluntarily selected letters on a screen, which guided the letter encoding; for each specific character, participants were asked to perform a particular mental task for a set period of time. That produced 27 distinct brain patterns corresponding to each letter of the alphabet and the equivalent of a space bar, which could be automatically decoded in real-time using newly developed data analysis methods.

In each communication experiment, participants held a mini-conversation consisting of two open questions and answers. Everyone the researchers tested was able to successfully produce answers within a single one-hour session.

The results substantially extend earlier uses of fMRI, which allowed individuals to answer the equivalent of multiple-choice questions having four or fewer possible answers, by enabling free-letter spelling. That could make all the difference for people who are completely paralyzed and unable to benefit from other means of alternative communication, Sorger says.

Ultimately, she says their goal is to transfer the fMRI technology they've developed to a more portable and affordable method for measuring blood flow, such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

Links:

Neuroscience: The mind reader

http://www.nature.com/news/neuroscience-the-mind-reader-1.10816

Adrian Owen

http://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/directory/profile.php?adrian

Call for Proposals for Assistive and Accessible Mobile Applications for 2012-13

Image Source: Wireless RERC website The Wireless Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (Wireless RERC), creator of access to wireless technologies to people with disabilities, is inviting developers to submit proposals to obtain financial support for creating assistive and/or accessibility apps for popular mobile platforms like iOS, Android, Blackberry 10, and Windows Phone. The Wireless RERC's app development budget is approximately $90k, and the idea is to support the development of four new apps per grant year. The app will be released through every platform's appropriate channel (App Store, Google Play, etc.) or through Wireless RERC's App Factory. If the app is successful, the developer may be offered additional funding to add more features or to create the app for an additional platform. Proposals will be evaluated on the following parameters: § The app addresses an important accessibility or assistive technology need.  § The app is unlikely to be developed in the commercial marketplace.  § The app is technically feasible and the technical capacity required for development is readily demonstrable by the developer.  § The projected lifetime of the app justifies the investment.  § The projected lifetime of the app justifies the investment.The app complements and does not duplicate other apps in the marketplace or under development. For the 2012-13 grant year, proposals need to be submitted by 15 September, 2012, and the final apps need to be delivered by August 10, 2013. To read more details about the Call for Proposals, visit the website here. Full document

Interactive Webinars on the Health Care Law

The HHS Partnership Center continues to host a series of interactive webinars discussing the benefits and provisions of the health care law, the Affordable Care Act.

All webinars are open to the public and include a question and answer session where you can ask HHS staff any question you may have about the health care law. Please submit questions you would like to have answered on the webinar to ACA101@hhs.gov.

To participate in one of the webinars, please select your preferred dates from the list below and submit the necessary information.

National Webinars

August 21, 2:00 pm ET – Tour of www.HealthCare.gov

August 28, 2:00 pm ET – The Health Care Law 101 (in Spanish)

September 13, 12:30 pm ET - The Health Care Law 101 (in English)

September 25 at 2:00 pm ET - The Health Care Law 101 (in Spanish)

Regional Health Care Law 101 Webinars

August 8, 11:00 am ET – Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont (HHS Region 1)

August 8, 2:00 pm CT, 1:00 pm MT – Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas (HHS Region 6)

August 20, 2:00pm ET – Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (HHS Region 2)

August 20, 3:00pm CT, 4:00pm ET – Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin (HHS Region 5)

Below are notices to advertise the webinars in each HHS Region.

You are invited to an:

To RSVP for the Webinar, please click here

To participate by conference call dial Toll-free: 1-877-568-4108
Access Code: 359-632-902, Pin #

Hosted by

HHS Regional Director, Dr. Jaime Torres

The HHS Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships

Please send questions in advance to ACA101@hhs.gov

If you are in another state, please see our webinar schedule here:

http://www.hhs.gov/partnerships/resources/aca_101-invite.html

You are invited to an:

Interactive Webinar on the Health Care Law,

The Affordable Care Act

August 8 at 11:00 am Eastern Time

This webinar is designed for faith and community leaders in the following

States: (HHS Region 1)

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont

To RSVP for the Webinar, please click here

To participate by conference call dial, Toll-free: 1-877-568-4108
Access Code: 406-837-812, Pin #

Hosted by HHS Regional Director, Christie Hager

and the HHS Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships

Please send questions in advance to ACA101@hhs.gov

If you are in another state, please see our webinar schedule here:

http://www.hhs.gov/partnerships/resources/aca_101-invite.html

You are invited to an:

Interactive Webinar on the Health Care Law,

The Affordable Care Act

August 8 at 2:00 pm Central Time, 1 pm Mountain Time

This webinar is designed for faith and community leaders in the following States: (HHS Region 6)

Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas

To RSVP for the Webinar, please click here

To participate by conference call dial Toll-free: 1-877-568-4108
Access Code: 726-605-865 , Pin #

Hosted by HHS Regional Director, Marjorie Petty

and the HHS Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships

Please send questions in advance to ACA101@hhs.gov

If you are in another state, please see our webinar schedule here:

http://www.hhs.gov/partnerships/resources/aca_101-invite.html

You are invited to an:

Interactive Webinar on the Health Care Law,

The Affordable Care Act

August 20 at 3:00 pm Central Time/4:00 pm Eastern Time

This webinar is designed for faith and community leaders in the following

States: (HHS Region 5)

Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin

To RSVP for the Webinar, please click here

To participate by conference call dial 1-877-568-4108
Access Code: 925-066-778, Pin #

Hosted by HHS Regional Director, Kenneth Munson

and the HHS Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships

Please send questions in advance to ACA101@hhs.gov

If you are in another state, please see our webinar schedule here:

http://www.hhs.gov/partnerships/resources/aca_101-invite.html

Statement of NCD on the 22nd Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

Today, the National Council on Disability (NCD) joins the rest of America in celebrating the 22nd anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law. As we do, we also celebrate NCD’s own history as the federal agency that proposed the landmark legislation.

As we consider the progress made in over two decades, we also use the anniversary to recommit ourselves to the full achievement of the ADA’s potential – that “equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency” is possible for every American, including those with disabilities.

Truly, this law warrants every celebratory observation it enjoys each year. Since its passage, the ADA has opened doors – literally and proverbially – for the more than 54 million Americans with disabilities, and everyone else, too. That’s because disability laws are hardly legal protections for the select few. Everyone benefits from the ADA. That’s because, in addition to the law’s visible impacts – curb cuts and ramps and the like -- anyone at any time can join the disability community due to aging, illness, or injury, as our wounded warriors and burgeoning senior population know well.

Because so many Americans’ lives are touched by disability directly or through a loved one, it’s not surprising that disability issues enjoy a proud history of bipartisan support. The ADA was a poignant example of that 22 years ago -- a Republican President appointed the members of the small federal agency – our agency – that conceived of the ADA; a Democrat-controlled House and Senate passed the ADA with broad Republican support; and Republican President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA into law on this day 22 years ago on the South Lawn of the White House.

A more recent example of the truly bipartisan quality of disability right issues came to mind again in recent months in the U.S. Senate. Six years after an American delegation under President George W. Bush helped negotiate and approve the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and three years after President Obama signed the Convention, Republican Senators John McCain, Jerry Moran, and John Barrasso, and Democratic Senators John Kerry, Dick Durbin, Tom Harkin, and Tom Udall all announced their support for U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in May following the submission of the treaty package to the Senate. At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Convention just this month, written or oral testimony from former President George H.W. Bush, former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, and Senator Bob Dole was also received in strong support of the Convention. NCD staunchly supports ratification of the Convention and is hopeful that the full Senate provides its consent for ratification in the days ahead.

As this most recent example continues to drive home – disability rights are no longer a radical concept. They are the norm; the standard. Those who oppose equal access and inclusion are increasingly out of touch with the majority of Americans, and, indeed, the rest of the world.

New battles seem perpetually ours, just as our disability rights movement forbearers have taught us by life examples spanning decades.  Persistently high unemployment, school bullying, entitlement reform… the work never seems completed.

But let us take heart. In the words of Henry Ford: “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, and working together is success.” So with the same spirited determination that our community’s leaders demonstrated in securing the law we celebrate today, let us march and roll together to greet the next wall with our hammers of justice and our shared hope as our unifying bond.

Happy anniversary, ADA! Lead on! Lead on!

Link to ADA Anniversary statement on NCD's web page:

http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/07262012

National Council on Disability

1331 F Street, NW, Suite 850

Washington, DC 20004

202-272-2004 Voice

Website: http://www.ncd.gov

Get regular updates via NCD’s Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/NCDgov

Follow NCD on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/NatCounDis

Sign up for regular email updates at:

http://www.ncd.gov/subscribe

New Technology Lets People Write Just With Their Eyes

From ABC News:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/writing-eyes-researchers-make/story?id=16861469

New technology in development allows people to write in cursive with their eyes. (Getty Images)

By DR. BRUCE GERYK, ABC News Medical Unit

July 26, 2012

Patients without the ability to use their limbs may have a new way to communicate, thanks to researchers in France. This offers hope to sufferers of strokes, spinal injuries, or degenerative diseases such as ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, who may be left without the ability to type, pick up a pen, or even speak.

The researchers developed a system that allows users to write in cursive on a video monitor using only their eyes. Dr. Jean Lorenceau of the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris has developed a method for translating eye movements into writing on a screen, and by doing so has simultaneously advanced possibilities for patients and solved a tricky puzzle posed by biology. The results are in today's issue of the journal Current Biology.

Lorenceau's device overcomes a difficult physiological problem called saccadic eye movements. If you try to move your gaze smoothly across a stationary object, you will will instead find your eyes "saccading," or jumping from one point to another. So-called smooth-pursuit eye movements are reserved by our bodies for following moving objects. This is normal, but presents problems for researchers trying to devise methods of eye writing, just as a constantly jerking hand would severely hamper someone trying to write with a pen.

Dr. Lorenceau's technique bamboozles the body's own circuitry by using a flickering screen. It tricks the brain into thinking the eyes are following a moving object. The device then uses known eye motion-detection technology to translate these movements into smooth cursive writing, fully controlled by the subject.

Other devices for communicating solely with the eyes do exist. They're less ambitious -- they let a user select choices from a menu in sequence rather than write -- but Lorenceau says they work well. However, he points out that users' ability to create something themselves is unique to his device.
"Maybe more important is the fact that cursive eye writing provides personal and creative means of expression," Lorenceau said. Furthermore, it allows people to achieve shades of meaning not available on a menu. "What if the figure you wish to draw is not in this repertoire," he said, "[such as] the drawing of a heart to indicate you love something?"

Lorenceau has just been selected by the French National Research Agency to partner with a physician caring for ALS patients in developing his device further, as well as a company to continue to develop the device and a programmer to develop software for cursive eye writing recognition.
But Lorenceau sees uses for his device beyond helping those unable to write on their own. "A training program could be helpful for children with oculomotor deficits or [even] athletes [or] artists and is therefore not necessarily exclusively to be used by patients unable to move their limbs," he said. "Although speculative, these ideas will be tested in the near future."

New Device Enables Eye-Controlled Computers

From: NASA Tech Briefs - 07/13/2012

Thanks to a new device, millions of people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, muscular dystrophy, or spinal cord injuries could soon interact with their computers and surroundings using just their eyes.

Composed from off-the-shelf materials, the technology works out exactly where a person is looking by tracking their eye movements, allowing them to control a cursor on a screen just like a normal computer mouse.

Read the entire article at:

http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/14167

Links:

GT3D Device Lets You E-mail with Your Eyes http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/low-cost-device-controls-_n_1676544.html

Researchers develop low-cost device to control computer with your eyes http://phys.org/news/2012-07-low-cost-device-eyes-video.html

EyeWriter Allows Man To Paint Despite Paralysis http://gizmodo.com/5403741/eyewriter-allows-man-to-paint-despite-paralysis

Students create affordable eye-tracking tablet for the disabled http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/15/students-create-affordable-eye-tracking-tablet-for-the-disabled/

Play Pong and Read Emails with Your Eyes Using This $60 Device

From: GeekTech - 07/13/2012

By: Yaara Lancet

A team of researchers from Imperial College London have developed an eye-tracking device that lets you control a computer, and not just control it, play games, read e-mails, and even browse the web.

 While eye-tracking technology is not new, this device is exciting for one good reason: it's cheap to build. While similar technology can be very unaffordable for those who really need it, this new device can be built for less than $60, and is made out of two video game console cameras.

Read the entire article and view a video (0:26) at:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/259240/play_pong_and_read_emails_with_your_eyes_using_this_60_device.html

Links:

Controlling your computer with your eyes http://www.iop.org/news/12/july/page_56546.html

Senseye hands-on, or how I learned to play 'Fruit Ninja' with my eyes (video

  1:52)

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/9/3074486/senseye-eye-tracking-fruit-ninja-computex-2012

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