Brain wave-powered tech allows Canadian kids ‘trapped in their own bodies’ to play

The Brain Computer Interface program at a hospital in Toronto develops technology that allows physically disabled children to use their minds to move and play.  

Eight-year-old Giselle Alnaser wants the Elmo stuffed toy sitting on a stool across the room, and she’s going to use her brain waves to get it.

As her mother encourages her with calls of, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Giselle concentrates as the platform beneath her wheelchair appears to roll by itself toward Elmo. She smiles when she reaches the stool and an occupational therapist hands her the toy.

Giselle was diagnosed with a CAMK2b gene mutation when she was a toddler. It affects her brain’s ability to communicate with her muscles — meaning she can’t walk or move her arms much — and she’s not able to speak.

The Brain Computer Interface program at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto develops technology that allows Giselle and dozens of other physically disabled children to use their minds to move and play.

“(These are) children who are not able to move themselves in space, (who) don’t have reliable movement and don’t have verbal communication or have difficulty with verbal communication. So really their only way of interacting with the environment is through their thoughts,” said Susannah Van Damme, an occupational therapist and team lead for the hospital’s clinical BCI program.

The brain computer interface works like an on-off switch triggered by electrical patterns in the brain. While wearing a headset with EEG electrodes, the child is asked to think about something specific that will serve as a “command” thought. The child is then asked to relax and put their mind in a quiet, passive state, which serves as the “stop” thought.

The electrodes transmit those electrical signals to a computer, where they are saved. The computer is trained through artificial intelligence to recognize those specific brain patterns when it sees them again and start or stop whatever device it’s connected to — such as Giselle’s rolling wheelchair platform.

“As long as an individual can generate activity in the brain you can kind of flick the switch and control the activity,” said Tom Chau, senior scientist and head of Holland Bloorview’s Paediatric Rehabilitation Intelligent Systems Multidisciplinary lab.