http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The European R&D project BrainAble, led by Barcelona Digital and aimed at improving the autonomy of people with serious physical disabilities, has just successfully ended after three years of technological research and development with an investment of €3 million, partially funded by the European Commission under the FP7 Programme. BrainAble has demonstrated the benefits that advanced technologies bring to people with physical disabilities so severe that they cannot interact with their environment (home, friends, family, etc.) independently. Specifically, the project has developed a prototype that allows these people to perform actions that they could not otherwise, such as writing and communicating in social networks, turning on and off the light or the television, controlling any digital home appliance, like a wheelchair, and playing in and exploring virtual environments for their entertainment. And all this is possible simply by reading electrical brain signals, without moving a muscle. http://phys.org/news287743474.html Technology Tue, 14 May 2013 09:44:49 EST news287743474 Every year thousands of people in Europe are paralysed by a spinal cord injury. Many are young adults, facing the rest of their lives confined to a wheelchair. Although no medical cure currently exists, in the future they could be able to walk again thanks to a mind-controlled robotic exoskeleton being developed by EU-funded researchers. http://phys.org/news281954619.html Technology Fri, 08 Mar 2013 08:43:52 EST news281954619 (Phys.org)—Beat induction, the ability to pick up regularity – the beat – from a varying rhythm, is not an ability that rhesus monkeys possess. These are the findings of researchers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), which have recently been published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. http://phys.org/news274641367.html Biology Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:16:16 EST news274641367 Electrical engineers at Oregon State University have developed new technology to monitor medical vital signs, with sophisticated sensors so small and cheap they could fit onto a bandage, be manufactured in high volumes and cost less than a quarter. http://phys.org/news272215486.html Technology Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:24:59 EST news272215486 (AP) -- Swiss scientists have demonstrated how a partially paralyzed person can control a robot by thought alone, a step they hope will one day allow immobile people to interact with their surroundings through so-called avatars. http://phys.org/news254472388.html Technology Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:46:37 EST news254472388 German researchers have used drivers' brain signals, for the first time, to assist in braking, providing much quicker reaction times and a potential solution to the thousands of car accidents that are caused by human error. http://phys.org/news231128890.html Technology Fri, 29 Jul 2011 03:28:16 EST news231128890 (PhysOrg.com) -- A "four-eyed" fish that sees simultaneously above and below the water line has offered up a dramatic example of how gene expression allows organisms to adapt to their environment. http://phys.org/news230388914.html Biology Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:55:36 EST news230388914 A bionic prosthetic arm that is controlled by its operator's thoughts and feels like the amputee's lost limb went on display Thursday at a major US science conference. http://phys.org/news217173088.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Feb 2011 13:52:03 EST news217173088 That feeling of being in, and owning, your own body is a fundamental human experience. But where does it originate and how does it come to be? Now, Professor Olaf Blanke, a neurologist with the Brain Mind Institute at EPFL and the Department of Neurology at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, announces an important step in decoding the phenomenon. By combining techniques from cognitive science with those of Virtual Reality (VR) and brain imaging, he and his team are narrowing in on the first experimental, data-driven approach to understanding self-consciousness. http://phys.org/news217167902.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Feb 2011 12:25:17 EST news217167902 The performance of a brain-machine interface designed to help paralyzed subjects move objects with their thoughts is improved with the addition of a robotic arm providing sensory feedback, a new study from the University of Chicago finds. http://phys.org/news211569825.html Medicine & Health Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:00:04 EST news211569825 In an early step toward letting severely paralyzed people speak with their thoughts, University of Utah researchers translated brain signals into words using two grids of 16 microelectrodes implanted beneath the skull but atop the brain. http://phys.org/news203052531.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:29:50 EST news203052531 Our belief as to whether we will likely succeed or fail at a given task -- and the consequences of winning or losing -- directly affects the levels of neural effort put forth in movement-planning circuits in the human cortex, according to a new brain-imaging study by neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology.  http://phys.org/news200126591.html Medicine & Health Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:43:35 EST news200126591 (PhysOrg.com) -- A squat, circular robot scurries along the floor of a laboratory, moving left, then right, then left again, before coming to a stop. A Northeastern University student researcher commands the gadget through a brain-computer interface that controls the movement of the robot using signals produced by his visual cortex. http://phys.org/news194631795.html Technology Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:23:31 EST news194631795 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Harvard and University of California, San Diego, researchers report having pinpointed an area of the brain where three essential components of language -- word identification, grammar, and word pronunciation -- are processed. http://phys.org/news175760599.html Medicine & Health Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:23:46 EST news175760599 (PhysOrg.com) -- A Duke University Medical Center researcher who spent years looking for the signals that prompt the brain to form new connections between neurons has found one that may explain precisely how a well-known drug for epilepsy and pain actually works. http://phys.org/news174577830.html Medicine & Health Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:10:01 EST news174577830 "Practice makes perfect" is the maxim drummed into students struggling to learn a new motor skill - be it riding a bike or developing a killer backhand in tennis. Stunning new research now reveals that the brain can also achieve this motor memory with a prosthetic device, providing hope that physically disabled people can one day master control of artificial limbs with greater ease. http://phys.org/news167375830.html Medicine & Health Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:50:01 EST news167375830 Experimental devices that read brain signals have helped paralyzed people use computers and may let amputees control bionic limbs. But existing devices use tiny electrodes that poke into the brain. Now, a University of Utah study shows that brain signals controlling arm movements can be detected accurately using new microelectrodes that sit on the brain but don't penetrate it. http://phys.org/news165475255.html Medicine & Health Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:21:22 EST news165475255 Increasingly severe sleep-related breathing disorders in older men appear to be associated with a greater risk of abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias), according to a report in the June 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, different types of breathing problems appear more closely associated with different categories of arrhythmia. http://phys.org/news164909181.html Medicine & Health Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:40:01 EST news164909181 BrainGate, an investigational technology being developed to detect brain signals and to allow people with paralysis to use those signals to control assistive devices, is about to begin a second, larger clinical trial. The system is based on neuroscience, engineering and computer science research at Brown University. http://phys.org/news163835209.html Medicine & Health Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:47:10 EST news163835209 (PhysOrg.com) -- Brain Computer Interfaces measure electrical signals from the brain and convert them into data that can be used by a computer. You can move a cursor on your screen, for example, simply by thinking about it. Now, researchers at the University of Twente have succeeded in measuring a person’s frame of mind in order to create a game environment. In World of Warcraft, a friendly elf can change into an aggressive bear without any physical action being necessary. http://phys.org/news162746885.html Technology Thu, 28 May 2009 16:28:57 EST news162746885