for medical

Mr. Ibaraki: Right now, clinical research is the most advanced.

It is becoming possible to communicate with patients who cannot speak or move by implanting electrodes in the skull called a “brain interface” and capturing brain activity. The accuracy is getting better and better, and we are able to communicate without any problems.

The "reading technology" mentioned earlier is used to estimate the state of the brain and develop products that adaptively improve that state. In addition, various technologies have evolved in "writing technology" and are adapted to artificial vision and cochlear implants.

The use of neurotechnology to regain or acquire lost abilities is becoming more and more realized.

General EEG

Mr. Ibaraki: On the other hand, the technology is advanced not only for medical use but also for general use.

Horino: That's right. As this kind of technology gradually becomes a commodity, it will spread more and more into our lives.

From around 2020, neurotechnology seems to have been attracting attention as an application area, with the fusion of artificial intelligence, experimental psychology, neuroscience, and psychiatry. It's been 100 years since the discovery of brain waves.
However, more than half of the papers and research results have been published since 2008, and it seems that research has progressed rapidly with the advent of PCs.

Note: https://journal.jspn.or.jp/jspn/openpdf/1100020134.pdf

What I feel every day is that neurotechnology needs to be democratized.
For that reason, we need something to spread it, and I think we need a device that anyone can use and that doesn't have a high hurdle to wear.

As an example, I will introduce the VIE ZONE of VIE STYLE.
This has been on sale mainly in North America for about half a year. Our goal is to create something you can wear every day, such as a smartwatch that blends into your everyday life. I made this shape because I thought that people could wear earphones without any resistance.

However, although it is known from theoretical research that the amount of signal is about 2/3 that of a classical electroencephalograph, it is possible to obtain a signal equivalent to that obtained from the forehead and back of the scalp. was found through joint research with the University of Tokyo (see the case study below).

In terms of software, the aforementioned "neurofeedback" seems difficult at first glance, but with the idea that "if anyone could use this, it would change the world." back)” protocol.

In Step 1, the state of the brain is defined, in Step 2, the brain wave (B) in a state different from the brain wave (A) in Step 1​ ​is shown. We will create a brain information decoder that deciphers by machine learning. Step 3 is the flow of feedback.

Also, with VIE ZONE earphones, you can listen to music like normal earphones.

In terms of a practical example of REC-DECK-BACK, if you monitor your brain waves while driving and measure your drowsiness, play music to wake you up, continue as it is when you wake up, and change to a different music if it doesn't have much effect. I'm going to check if I can wake up from sleep. If it is effective, it is possible to control the closed loop type that the song is played further.

In this case, the feature is that it can be adjusted using music and sound stimulation according to the driver's condition.

A type of EEG that allows you to easily measure brain waves provided by Macnica

Murata: Up until now, it was necessary to go through an MRI to obtain an EEG, and the hurdles were quite high.

This is also becoming simpler, but I think it is quite difficult to wear this and adapt it to the general public.
Therefore, in the future, we believe that it is essential to have a device that is smaller and fits in with normal life.

Mr. Ibaraki: I feel that this kind of evolution on the hardware side is extremely important for future social implementation. We feel that the issues in the introduction part affect usability on the hardware side. However, I think that the role of hardware is to measure, and software and applications will become important.