By Robert Lee Hotz
Los Angeles Times
December 7, 2004

NEW YORK -- Harnessing the electrical echoes of thought, researchers have developed a way for people to control a computer cursor simply by thinking about it.

The device, which has been tested successfully on four people, does not require implants, surgery or any other invasive medical procedure, the researchers reported Monday. Previous efforts required electrodes wired directly into brain cells.

Instead, scientists at the New York State Department of Health and the State University of New York designed a system to monitor the faint electricity that naturally radiates from every brain and then created software to translate those reflections of thought into direct action.

The research, which was made public in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, appears to offer a means for people paralyzed by stroke, spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) to operate computers or prosthetic devices by imagining the movement.

"It is an impressive achievement," said John Donoghue, a senior neuroscientist at Brown University who was not involved in the research project. "Such a device has great potential to improve the lives of paralyzed individuals."

Scientists have long sought to bridge the gulf of damaged nerves between the brain cells that control movement or speech and the muscles those cells seek to animate.

By perfecting a link between mind and computer, they hope that patients who are unable to move or speak can resume their interaction with the world around them. Researchers estimate that there are more than a half million "locked-in" patients -- people who, because of disease or injury, are unable to control their muscles enough to activate any communication device.

Starting in 1999, several paralyzed patients in Atlanta underwent experimental surgery for brain implants that allowed them rudimentary control of a computer.

The new brain computer interface, however, eliminates the necessity for the surgery that makes such implants an extreme medical measure.