Pu Muming talks about the development of China's brain-computer interface: our vision is bigger

How to do brain science research in China? Academician Pu Muming: If there is a gap, we must have explorers

How to do brain science research in China? Academician Pu Muming: If there is a gap, what should we do with explorers in Chinese brain science research? Academician Pu Muming: If there is a gap, we must have explorers

"We go to the hospital for check-ups, check the whole body, the brain never checked
.

" Pujiang Innovation Forum at the plenary session held recently, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Fellow , American Academy of foreign academicians , Zhong Keyuan brain science and smart technology innovation center of academic excellence The director, Pu Muming, director of the Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-like Research, said

Academy Academy of Sciences academician Zhong ASTRI ASTRI

Behind this sentence is that humans know very little about their own brains
.

The complexity of the brain has given humans wisdom, but exploring the brain has become the "ultimate territory" that scientists all over the world strive to reach

But this sample is still only one millionth of the capacity of the entire human brain
.

Pu Muming told reporters of The Paper ( “What they are doing is electron microscope atlas, which is very fine atlas data.

Pu Muming believes that to become a truly powerful country in science and technology, Chinese scientists must stand on the frontiers and major issues of world science and technology, and be "explorers" in the field of science
.

Explorers are tour guides for scientific research all over the world.

Pu Muming hopes that in the future, a group of young explorers will emerge in China and become world tour guides in their respective fields of scientific research
.

Pu Muming was born in Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province on October 31, 1948, and his native place is Meizhou City, Guangdong Province
.

He graduated from the Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Taiwan , China in 1970, and received his Ph.

Taiwan Zhong ASTRI ASTRI

During his more than 40 years of research career, he has made outstanding contributions in many fields of neuroscience, and is now a leader of China's "Brain Project"
.

Poo was elected in 2011, Chinese Academy of foreign academicians , 2018 into Chinese Academy of Sciences academician

Academy Academy of Sciences academician

What is brain science research?

What is brain science research?

The human brain has hundreds of billions of neuronal cells that are connected to each other to form the most complex network in the world.
All our cognition, emotions, and decision-making depend on this network, and intelligence comes from this
.

Facing the "black hole" of the human brain, where do scientists start?

Pu Muming mentioned in his speech that the goal of brain science research is very clear, which is to clarify the neural basis and working principles of brain functions, and to understand how the brain works
.

At the same time, I also hope to get some inspiration from the research of the brain, which can simulate the brain and obtain higher intelligent artificial devices, including intelligent robots

Corresponding to China's brain science plans that have been brewing for many years, these tasks are the basic organization of "one body and two wings"
.

To put it simply, "one body" refers to the neural basis for the study of brain cognitive functions, including brain research innovation technology platforms, cognitive function neural circuit research, and brain development research; "two wings" refer to brain disease diagnosis and treatment and brain development.
Computer intelligence technology, the diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases includes early diagnosis and intervention of cognitive-related critical brain diseases, clinical and community cohort data and sample libraries, and brain-computer intelligence technology includes brain-computer interface and brain regulation technology, brain-like computing systems, and brain-like computing systems.
Devices and agents
.

Regarding the neural basis of brain cognitive functions, Pu Muming said that everyone knows that there are many basic cognitive functions, including the perception of external information, various emotions, attention to the external world, and making decisions.
"The working principle of these functions It’s what we want to know, what’s the brain circuit?” On top of this, there is the decryption of more advanced functions, “When humans evolved to primates, many new intelligences appeared, including empathy and relatives.
Social behavior, consciousness, language, etc.

"

"We also want to know the development process of cognitive functions, why does intelligence appear when children are born, and what is going on in the brain growth process? We also hope to get some inspiration from it, and have some inspiration for the construction of devices and artificial networks
.
" Pu Mumingti At this level, it is also necessary to explore the impact of environmental and genetic factors on cognitive function
.

To explore all these causal relationships and to understand these unknowns in a panoramic manner, we first need a " map " of the brain , "This is the map of neural connections
.
" In the process of drawing this map by scientists, the spatial resolution goes from millimeters to micrometers, and then further Fine to the nanometer level, they are called macroscopic atlas (NMR imaging), mesoscopic atlas (optical microscope), and microscopic atlas (electron microscope imaging)
.

map

Pu Muming mentioned that once the mesoscopic level is clear, we can understand the working principles of many loops, and China currently leads the world at the mesoscopic map level
.
China Kexue Yuan academician , professor of Wuhan Optical National Research Center for Biomedical Photonics Labs Huazhong University of Science Luo Qingming, who had created the whole brain microscopic optical sectioning tomography with submicron resolution voxel (MOST) technology, which It satisfies the major needs of drawing the whole brain mesoscopic neural connection map
.

Academician of the Academy of Sciences

Pu Muming mentioned that using this technology, we have reconstructed the axon whole-brain projection map of 52 mouse cortical neurons in three dimensions
.
"The reconstruction of the entire mouse map can be completed in the next 5 years.
In 15 years or so, we have to map the macaque primate map clearly
.
" The complexity is unimaginable, "it requires the joint work of mathematical scientists and information scientists
.
"

Brain Health Survey: Chinese standards contribute to the world's brain health

Brain Health Survey: Chinese standards contribute to the world's brain health

Among the aforementioned "two wings", one is oriented towards the diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases
.
Pu Muming said that according to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, brain-related diseases, including various neurological and psychiatric diseases, are the most socially burdened of all diseases, surpassing cardiovascular diseases and cancer
.
At the same time, with the advent of an aging society, neurodegenerative diseases have become increasingly prominent
.

"Our society is facing a huge burden, and what is more serious is that we do not have very effective drugs for treating brain diseases
.
" Of course, this is not only true in China, but also in the whole world, with autism disorder in childhood and depression in adulthood.
The scientific community has put forward some theories for various serious brain diseases such as degenerative diseases in old age, but there is no solution
.

"We have to wait to find out the pathogenic mechanism will be too late, too much burden on society, and before that we want to have early warning of diseases, early diagnosis
.
" Based on this idea, Zhong Keyuan brain science and intelligent technical excellence The Innovation Center/Institute of Neuroscience launched the brain function inspection tool set research and development project in 2016, and finally formed a tool set with 15 quantitative brain function tests.
“Play some games, do some EEG recordings, eye movement records, etc.
Objective
.
Give you a value in an hour and a half and I will know how your long-term memory and short-term memory are
.
"

Zhong ASTRI ASTRI

Pu Muming said in his speech that last year, this tool set was tried out in various hospitals and mental health centers in Shanghai
.
He hopes that by 2025, the following goals can be achieved: establishing standards for the normal distribution and abnormality of various brain function indicators with age, implementing comprehensive brain health surveys for the elderly in major hospitals in the Yangtze River Delta, and suggesting early prevention and diagnosis of brain diseases Guiding suggestions and programs, provide specific early intervention programs and methods for various abnormal functions
.

"This is not available in the world.
The international diagnosis is based on questionnaires.
Asking if you remember what you ate this morning or the name of your parents, these are all subjective
factors.
" Pu Muming further Hopefully, by 2050, this method can be extended to the whole country and the world, "there is a Chinese standard to contribute to the world's brain health
.
"

Of course, this brain health census has just started
.
Pu Muming also mentioned to The Paper ( that the current tool set is version 1.
0, "it is constantly changing, and it is changed to be more friendly and fun to use
.
" In the current development process, problems encountered The main question is whether the patient or healthy person is willing to do it.
"It needs to be done for an hour and a half.
It is still a matter of efficiency and more effective
.
"

Brain-computer interface: We have a bigger vision and spend a lot of effort to close the loop

Brain-computer interface: We have a bigger vision and spend a lot of effort to close the loop

In the last part of his speech, Pu Muming focused on the other wing of the aforementioned "two wings", namely brain-computer intelligence technology
.
In particular, it talked about the brain-computer interface (BCI), which is the most popular in the scientific community and the public is paying special attention to.
"Everyone sees Musk constantly showing his new brain-computer interface.
What is the situation in our country?"

He pointed out that the so-called brain-computer interface technology refers to the establishment of communication and control channels between the brain and external devices, the use of brain bioelectric signals to control external devices, and feedback and control brain activities, through brain-machine-environment-brain The feedback interaction of the system realizes "brain control" and "brain control"
.

Pu Muming said that what Musk is doing now is "brain control", which uses implanted electrodes to obtain brain electrical information to control external devices
.
For example, when a monkey plays a game, a special brain wave appears in the brain, and this brain wave is used to manipulate the machine to play the game
.
"There are medical purposes in this area, for example, people who are paralyzed can control artificial limbs
.
" The other is "brain control", that is, external devices generate electrical and magnetic information to control brain activity
.

Pu Muming believes that the ideal is a closed loop, the brain controls the external devices, and the devices interact with the external links, and get feedback to change the information output by the brain
.
"This is our goal.
This is the ultimate goal of making a brain-computer interface.
We can't do it now.
Musk has done the'brain control' part.
We hope to achieve a closed-loop brain-computer interface
.
"

Pu Muming also pointed out that there are still big obstacles in the field of brain-computer interface, and some major scientific problems need to be solved
.
The first big question is how to decode brain information? He believes that the existing brain wave information collection, artificial intelligence algorithms and machine learning algorithms are used to decode the information represented by the brain waves, "this is a superficial decoding, not a true understanding of brain activity
.
"

Pu Muming further explained to The Paper reporter that now it is mainly relying on big data, and the data is not accurate enough, "I don't know what it means, we need to correspond
.
" He believes that in the future EEG should be more refined and have more data, "but It’s even better if you know what the loop is like
.
You know that this loop represents the movement of this finger, and that loop represents the movement of that finger.
You have recorded it on it, and you know it very clearly.
Now There is no such ability yet
.
"

The second biggest problem facing the brain-computer interface is how to regulate the state of the brain? "Which position needs to be stimulated is even more difficult.
If we don't know the network structure and what function the stimulus can produce, we are tantamount to stimulating blindly
.
"

Pu Muming introduced in his speech that the Chinese team has now achieved the implantation of flexible electrode arrays in awake macaques.
“The monkeys can record thousands of channels at the same time when they are fully awake, and they can see the firing of a single neuron.
This is the information we got.
The amount is already a lot, decode from it, and know what it is
.
"

"Now that we understand the meaning of its information, monkeys can start playing games
.
" Pu Muming mentioned, "The gap between the development of this technology in China and the United States is 5-10 years, and there is now a project in Shanghai that supports it.
, I believe that within 5 years we can keep pace with Musk’s technology
.
” In his view, Musk’s brain-computer interface company has done a better job in miniaturization, wireless transmission and system integration
.

He also emphasized to The Paper reporters that its goal is not limited to catching up with Musk's technology.
"The direction is different.
Our vision is bigger.
It takes a lot of work to make a closed-loop brain-computer interface
.
"

Speaking of the talent support required by the huge brain project, Pu Muming said that in recent years, many young scientists have returned from studying abroad.
"There are many young people, and there is still a lot of hope
.
"