Interfacing the brain
By VICTOR GRETO, The News Journal

Posted Wednesday, October 3, 2007 at 2:29 pm

Scott Mackler, a Penn professor who has ALS, wears an electrode cap that works with a software system that helps translate communication. Dana Williams, his personal assistant, works with him. (Buy photo)

The News Journal/CARLA VARISCO


The computer shows his brain waves, and his assistant checks to see that there is a good quality signal so that Scott Mackler can work.
(Buy photo)

The News Journal/CARLA VARISCO


Scott Mackler with his wife, Lynn Snyder-Mackler (right) and personal trainer Dana Williams
(Buy photo)

The News Journal/CARLA VARISCO


Scott Mackler wears an electrode cap that works with a software system that helps translate communication.
(Buy photo)

The News Journal/CARLA VARISCO
The first time Lynn Snyder-Mackler realized her husband, Scott, had reached yet another level of expressive sophistication, she was watching some chick flick on TV.

Suddenly, the channel changed to ESPN Sports Center.

Puzzled, she looked at the remote control. Untouched. She switched the station back.
The station changed back again to Sports Center.

That Scott was the culprit barely registered, even though he wore a big grin on his face.

Scott, who has had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, for nine years, is unable to move or or breathe on his own. ALS attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, killing off motor neurons that move the body’s muscles.
There is no cure.

But in the past two years, Scott has been adapting and using a brain-computer interface system that has allowed him to communicate more easily with those around him, from Lynn to his personal assistant, Dana Williams.

Scott, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the subject of a News Journal profile in December 2005, was then just beginning to learn how to use the BCI system.

He can now not only change channels simply by thinking about it via the BCI system, he can turn the TV off and on. More importantly, he writes e-mails, lectures via software, and writes research grants.

On Sunday, Scott and Lynn and a big chunk of the rest of their extended family will be out in force raising money for the Scott A. Mackler, MD, Ph.D. Assistive Technology Program of the ALS Association’s Greater Philadelphia Chapter, at the 8th annual Scott Mackler 5K Run/Walk. It begins at 12:30 p.m. at Temple Beth El, 301 Possum Park Road, in Newark.
The money that the walkers and runners raise will go toward purchasing “assistive technology” for the 850 Delawareans, and thousands of others in the region, who have ALS. Insurance seldom covers the expensive devices.

Scott and Lynn have helped raise $850,000 for assistive technology since 2000.

Scott is not just changing channels on his wife with the new technology.

With a dual appointment in the departments of Pharmacology and Medicine at Penn, Scott recently wrote a grant application and was awarded $1.25 million over five years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He and his associates will explore the biochemistry of the brain when it is addicted to cocaine.

As the BCI system becomes more sophisticated, Lynn said, “Think about all the people it will help to communicate.”

Not just people with ALS, but “all of those who are locked inside. Those with cerebral palsy, or those who have special kinds of strokes that affect the brain stem. Any condition where you can only move your eyes.”

The system works via an electrode cap fixed with 16 electrodes that Scott wears. The electrodes read Scott’s brainwaves, which can be seen on a laptop computer nearby.

Scott views a large screen in front of him as vertical and horizontal beams of light flash over a series of letters and numbers and computer characters.

The system zeroes in on one particular brainwave, labeled P300, which changes its shape depending on what one is paying attention to. When Scott concentrates on a letter or numeral (or the TV sign, also on the screen) the machine recognizes and fixes in on it.

If, for instance, Scott wants to control the TV, he concentrates his eyes on that sign. The machine then forwards to a screen that has off-on, mute and numerals that control channel changes. It changes the channels through infrared technology.

“This machine has revolutionized the way he communicates,” Lynn said. “With all the enchancements (including adapting the software to Scott’s brainwaves) he has a lot more control.”

Contact Victor Greto at 324-2832 or vgreto@delawareonline.com.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/p.../NEWS/71003039