Researchers at University of Glasgow Institute of Neuroscience & Psychology have been able to identify  types of information contained in certain brainwaves related to vision. Measured using electroencephalography (EEG),  knowing what information is encoded in them, and how encoding takes place, is a mystery.

“It’s a bit like unlocking a scrambled television channel. Before, we could detect the signal but couldn’t watch the content; now we can." says Professor Philippe Schyns, director of the Institute of Neurosciences & Psychology and the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, who led the pioneering study.

“How the brain encodes the visual information that enables us to recognise faces and scenes has long been a mystery. While we are able to detect EEG activity in certain areas of the brain when particular tasks are performed, we’ve not known what information is being carried in those brainwaves.

“What we have done is to find a way of decoding brainwaves to identify the messages within.”

To decode some of these brainwaves,researchers recruited six volunteers and presented them with images of people’s faces, displaying different emotions such as happiness, fear and surprise. In different experimental trials, parts of the images were randomly covered so, only the eyes or mouth were visible. Volunteers were asked to identify the emotion being displayed.

Engaged in this exercise the participants’ brainwaves were measured using EEG which allowed the researchers to identify which  brain parts were active when looking at different parts of the face.

Brainwaves vary widely in frequency, amplitude and phase. Researchers found that ‘beta’ waves with a cycle of 12Hz carried information about the eyes, while ‘theta’ waves at 4Hz encoded information about the mouth. They found information could be primarily encoded depending on phase – or timing of the brainwave – and less by its amplitude – or strength.

Prof Schyns notes: “By using multiple frequencies to encode two different parts of the face – a process called multiplexing – the brain can code more signals at the same time. It is a bit like radiowaves coding different radio stations at different frequency bands. Likewise, the brain tunes in different waves to code different visual features.  This work has huge potential in the development of brain-computer interfaces.”

The research ties in with a unique Glasgow initiative  by Professor Philippe Schyns, Professor Joachim Gross and Dr Gregor Thut, of the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (CCNi), combining Magnetoencephalography (MEG), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and statistical information mapping, to understand how the oscillatory networks of the brain can be modelled and interacted with to enhance or suppress visual perception.

This will enable them to gain a greater understanding of brain processes – creating a model of the brain as an information processing device or a computer.
 

European 'Human Brain Project' launch
The Neuro-Electronics Research Flanders labs Flanders' ambitious brain research that may lead to better diagnosis, treatment of brain disease, new prosthesis technologies for patients with disability, and a new generation of more intelligent robots has been opened.

Ingrid Lieten, Flemish Minister of Innovation, imec, VIB and K.U.Leuven officially inaugurated Neuro-Electronics Research Flanders (NERF) labs on the Imec campus in Leuven and funded by the Flemish government.

In NERF, managed by (left) Gustaaf Borghs, these three Flemish centres of expertise are pooling their knowledge in nanoelectronics, biotechnology and neurology with a view to achieving breakthroughs in unravellling the workings of the brain.

The NERF labs with six separate sector board members (L2R) Christof Koch (Caltech, USA) Karel Svoboda (Janelia, USA) Stephen DeWeerth (Georgia Tech, USA) Gilles Laurent (MPI, DE) Patrick Wolf (Duke Univ, USA) and Liqun Luo (Stanford Univ, USA) offer a unique combination of state-of-the-art nanoelectronics research instruments and tools for biotechnological and neurological research.

The aim of the Human Brain Project, led by the Swiss EPFL, is to bring together in huge databanks everything we know and all we can learn about the workings of brain molecules, cells and connections.

This will serve as a basis for making biologically extremely accurate and detailed simulations of the entire human brain with the aid of informatics, modelling and supercomputing.

Through NERF and the participation of Flanders' research institutes in the Human Brain Project, and through CCNI and the work at the University of Glasgow, both Scotland and Flanders show  they are putting progressive brain research high on their research agenda.