The next day, neuroscience lab.
A small conference room, a long oval table, four people sitting scattered.
The new core team members are gathering together, gearing up for a big fight.
"Old Chen, I just want to ask, how is your research on motor nerves and brain-computer interfaces? To what stage are you at?"
As soon as he sat down, Wang Dali couldn't wait to ask.
He was very interested in this project and felt that he had a great responsibility, so he wanted to know as much as possible so that he could get started immediately.
Chen Yiqing opened the ppt and said in a deep voice: "This is exactly what I want to introduce today. Please look at the big screen."
“Research on brain-computer interfaces has been ongoing around the world for more than ten years, so it is not difficult to catch up and reach the current level.”
"Currently we have done some animal experiments and they have all been successful, including experiments on the brains of primates."
As he spoke, a picture of a monkey appeared on the projection screen.
This monkey is no different from the common monkeys in the mountains. The only difference is that it wears a hat on its head.
The hat seems to be glued firmly to the top of its head using adhesive.
"This is a macaque who, like many humans, is a video game addict."
"We spent several months teaching it to play games."
“It started out as a game of catching peaches.”
"Put it in front of a display, and when the game starts, the peaches will fall from the top of the display one by one."
"At this time, it needs to grab a joystick in front of it with its right hand, move the fruit basket at the bottom of the screen, and quickly catch the falling peaches."
"There is a tube under the monitor. Whenever the monkey catches a peach, a pine nut will fall out of the tube, and the monkey will grab it and quickly stuff it into his mouth."
"This monkey likes eating pine nuts very much. In order to get the reward of pine nuts and satisfy his snack addiction, he fell in love with video games."
"However, after playing this game for a long time, it seemed to get boring, and we tried a number of other games."
"We ended up with three of the most popular games."
"Every time when you get tired of playing one game, you can switch to another of the three games and you can play it with great interest again."
Chen Yiqing eloquently introduced the experimental animal and even played a video of a monkey playing a game.
Sure enough, as he said, the monkey in the video, wearing a hat, was dancing and happily playing a simple computer game on the screen.
He is naturally elegant and dignified in manners. In addition, he speaks clearly and interestingly. When he talks about professional scientific experiments, he can also make people feel like he is taking a breath of fresh air.
After playing the video, Chen Yiqing waved the laser pointer in his hand and returned to the ppt interface.
The red laser point moved next to the monkey.
The structure of the hat worn by the monkey is displayed there.
It turns out that there are four plastic connectors connected to the bottom of the hat. Each connector is connected to several metal micro-transmission arrays and can receive the nerve signals from them.
"We implanted several microtransmission line arrays in the brain of a monkey, collected many movement-related neural electrical signals, constructed the monkey's hand movement program, and performed a simple mechanical reproduction."
"Please see, these metal micro-wire arrays are carefully placed into the monkey's brain, placed in the extracellular space of these nerve cells that are filled with fluid and contain a small amount of salt, and they focus on collecting the electrical sparks emitted by the neurons."
"A microtransmission array was placed a few millimeters beneath various regions of the prefrontal and parietal lobes, areas associated with primate visual-motor vision."
"Primates are able to use these areas to translate visual cues, such as falling fruit or flying mosquitoes, into the hand movements needed to move a mechanical joystick."
"In addition to this, several microwire arrays were implanted in the primary motor cortex and other motor cortical areas of the monkey's brain."
"In the monkey brain, every time a cortical neuron next to a microtransmission line generates an action potential, a small current flows through the extracellular space and is detected by the terminals of the microtransmission line."
"The charges from all the microwires are pooled together and transferred to a connected microchip at the top."
The laser pointer in Chen Yiqing's hand stopped in the middle of the hat.
"This is a neuron chip. Each plastic connector corresponds to a neuron chip. There are four in total. The electronic devices inside it can amplify and filter the tiny electrical signals generated by neurons."
"Each neuron chip has a small bundle of wires sticking out of the hat and connected to a computer in a soundproof cabinet next to it, which is responsible for converting the monkey's thoughts into a stream of digital signals.
"These digital signal streams will control the movements of two robotic arms in the next room based on the thoughts of the monkey's brain."
Having said this, Chen Yiqing smiled: "Of course, I am just introducing the specific working principle. This cute macaque is currently in our laboratory. If you are interested, you can meet it after the meeting and observe it. Here’s an image of its neural activity while playing games.”
Wang Dali blurted out: "Can monkeys also play games?"
"Yes, monkeys can not only play games, but they are also very agile, no worse than some people."
Chen Yiqing nodded, as if he suddenly thought of something funny, and his eyes involuntarily drifted to Wen Renlong beside him.
Wen Renlong listened quietly at first, but when he saw Chen Yiqing's eyes, his face immediately darkened, he snorted and turned his head to the side.
Wang Dali's curiosity suddenly burst out, and he quickly asked: "Chen Bo, Boss Chen, what is going on? It makes me happy to talk about it. Is it related to Wen Renlong?"
Chen Yiqing hesitated for a moment, but Zhang Li next to him burst into laughter.
"Actually, it's nothing. Just a few months ago, when we were training the monkeys to play a game, someone happened to be watching and said that he also liked playing this game and could train the monkeys for him."
"As you know, training a monkey is a hassle, so we happily gave him the task of training one of the games."
"As a result, after training for more than a month, the monkey started playing this game and beat the master." Zhang Li covered her mouth and laughed so hard.
"Hahaha~" Wang Dali let out a burst of laughter and looked at Wen Renlong in disbelief: "No way, what kind of game is this? Monkeys can play it better than people."
"Whack-a-mole." Chen Yiqing uttered one word briefly and explained: "Monkeys react very quickly, 3-5 times faster than humans. Aaron's defeat is understandable. After all, this is not an intellectual game. "
Wang Dali was silent for a moment. He suddenly remembered that he had played this game before, and his results seemed not to be very good.
After all, human beings' strength lies in their intelligence. In terms of arm reaction speed, they cannot compare with many animals.
He glanced at Wen Renlong with sympathetic eyes and thought, "Fortunately, I'm not stupid enough to compete with a monkey on my reaction speed."
Zhang Li said with a smile: "The monkey seems to like this simple tapping game, and there are rewards for playing the game. Every time he hits a gopher, he gets pine nuts to eat. The positive feedback is very strong. Think about Mount Emei In order to grab food, the monkeys even beat people, let alone whack-a-mole."
After hearing this, Wang Dali felt even more sympathetic to Wen Renlong.
Wild monkeys dare to punch humans hard for food. The monkeys in the laboratory naturally tried their best to play the game in order to get snack rewards.
Not to mention Wen Renlong, a crispy scholar sitting in an office, even if he were an e-sports player, it would be hard to say whether he would win or lose.
Zhang Li thought for a while and then added: "I have read a piece of news that said that in order to eat nuts, wild monkeys will smash them with stones and then eat the fruits inside. You see how hard the monkeys work to eat. They all use tools like humans."
She covered her mouth and chuckled: "Netizens say that these monkeys have entered the Stone Age."
"Hahaha~" Wang Dali grinned and laughed.
"Ahem~" Chen Yi cleared his throat and said, "Okay, let's get back to the topic and continue talking about monkeys, no, let's talk about neural activity."
"Here, I want to explain some neuroscience principles related to primates, including humans."
Chen Yiqing raised his arm, pressed the switch, turned the laser pointer on and off, and then said.
"Look at my hands. In order to achieve the purpose of switching, the fingers will make pressing movements. Most people will definitely think that these movements are completed by the brain directly controlling every nerve and then manipulating all the muscles."
"Actually, that's not the case."
"The brains of humans, oh, and probably all primates, will think before making an action, conceive in advance the actions that the arm and hand muscles should complete, and then send a complete set of action programs to the nerves system, communicated to the arm to complete these actions."
"Using a monkey as an analogy, when it is thinking about how to play this game, the implanted microtransmission line array preferentially detects the electrical signals in its cerebral cortex before the hand starts to move."
"You see, our brain is very smart. It is a well-deserved control center and an absolute dictator."
"Through your daily behavior, the brain knows what actions your limbs must complete to complete a goal."
"It will conceive in advance, analyze each specific action, form a set of action programs, and then send out nerve and electrical signals one by one to drive your body to complete all actions."
"This is also the reason why patients who lose the spinal cord, the connection center between the brain and the body, will be paralyzed."
"Because the body has lost the command of the brain, it cannot make any small movements and does not know how to do it."
"The muscle cells in your arm used to only execute the instructions of the brain, just rotate and jump with eyes closed, but now there is no message coming through, and they can't even tell the difference between forward and backward."
"Of course, for some actions that are performed countless times every day, a conditioned reflex has been formed for the brain, and it will run spontaneously, and it will be completed before you are conscious."
"Such as walking, eating, opening doors, getting up, and even driving."
"These are low-power maintenance actions for the brain. They are completed automatically without you having to use your brain."
"Whether it's over the head or not, the principles of these two behaviors are the same. It's just that one is more obvious and the other is more subtle."
"In any case, these behaviors are detectable through neural signals."
"This is the neurological principle behind the brain-computer interface. As long as we detect the neural signals corresponding to the behavior and record them as a database, we can convert these biological signals into electromechanical signals and successfully drive the mechanical device to make the same action. "
These words were simple and clear, and Wang Dali understood them instantly.
He leaned back in his chair, enjoying the feeling of knowledge flowing through his brain. He looked extremely intoxicated and shook his head as he spoke.
"It's so well said that even a layman like me can understand it immediately."
"I just realized today that the brain and the computer have so many similarities."
"The nervous system is like a circuit, spread throughout the body, controlling the muscles of the body and making every movement."
"The computer is a self-aware controller. It even programmed its own control program, compiled it into electrical signals, and transmitted them to every part of the body through circuits."
"That's probably what the legendary cyber robot is."
His eyes gradually became fanatical: "Actually, the principles behind the human body and machines are the same, but the manifestations are different, and the biological systems are much more complex."
Suddenly, Wang Dali's keen sense of smell as a man of science and engineering was touched, and he keenly perceived the key.
He raised his head suddenly, looked at Chen Yiqing, and asked a question.
"So how do you convert raw brain activity into digital signals?"
Bang bang bang!
Chen Yiqing applauded enthusiastically: "Good question."
"That's exactly the point. Early on, many thought this was an insurmountable hurdle."
"Think about it, biological nerve signals and alternating current signals are completely different things. How can we convert between the two easily?"
"After some hard work, scientists discovered..."
"In fact, the answer to the question is simple."
"Neuronal electrical signals are a kind of data. As long as it is data, I mean, any data, it can be statistically calculated using simple algorithms and simulated."
Having said this, Chen Yiqing looked at Wen Renlong and praised him greatly.
"This requires the use of algorithmic capabilities. With the help of Aaron, we completed this work."
"Of course, the game he played for the monkey before was also the result of his programming. It can be said that Aaron fully enjoyed the god-like treatment of being overthrown."
Wen Renlong had already shown a proud smile, but after hearing the next sentence, the smile instantly solidified on his face.
Chen Yiqing continued to flip through the ppt and displayed the entire algorithm diagram on the screen.
"We used a multiple linear regression algorithm that linearly aggregates the electrical activity generated simultaneously by cortical neurons to accurately predict the monkey's hand position."
"This algorithm is able to determine the best way to measure the electrical activity of each neuron and then aggregate these weights to produce a continuous motor output signal."
"At the same time, we also put a plastic belt on the monkey's forearm with a fiber-optic sensor inside, which can sense the movement of the monkey's arm."
"As the monkey moved its arm, we recorded the position of the wrist and compared it with the monkey's neuronal signals at the beginning of each movement."
"That's it, on one side is the prediction of the monkey's arm movement by the monkey's neuron signal, and on the other side is the corresponding neuron signal when the monkey's arm moves."
"Comparing the two sets of data allowed us to derive a multivariate linear equation describing the level of correlation between neuronal signals and the monkey's arm movements."
"We can then refine the algorithm so that it can translate the electrical activity of neurons into action trajectories that change over time."
"Moreover, after a long period of algorithm improvement, the coefficient values have become more and more stable and have reached the optimal level."
"To some extent, this algorithm can artificially recreate complex neurophysiological tasks normally performed by the spinal cord."
"After extensive training, these neural electrical signals can eventually be used on mechanical devices to reconstruct the movement trajectory of the monkey's wrist, thereby realizing the monkey's hand movement."
"The only regret is that this algorithm can only be used to predict motion parameters for the time being."
(End of chapter)
