Mexican scientists made a breakthrough in employing a computerized interface in the detection of mental fatigue. Accordingly, a group of specialists from two Mexican institutions developed a non-invasive brain-computer interface capable of detecting mental fatigue by reading brain’s electrical signals.
The device reads the electrical signals emitted by the neurons in the brain
The device is made of a headband filled with electrodes which connect to the cerebral cortex while maintaining a wireless connection to a computer, according to Nataly Medina Rodriguez, a researcher from the CETYS University in Tijuana, and one of the scientists who worked on the development of this non-invasive brain-computer interface capable of detecting mental fatigue.
“The first thing that happens is that the interface detects the electrical change of the neurons in the brain, this is practically an electrical signal,” the researcher said.
The non-invasive brain-computer interface sends the signals to a computer program which translates them
In an interview with the Information Agency of the National Council of Science and Technology, in Mexico, Nataly Medina Rodriguez explained that this signal is transmitted wirelessly to a computer.
In the computer, the scientist explains, a process is performed, first centered on the signal, to eliminate ‘noise’, and then focused on the classification of the signals based on a default pattern and identified brain patterns which are compared with a baseline, while new signals are classified according to the Stanford scale.
According to the Nataly Medina Rodriguez, the Stanford scale measures in units from one to ten, where one is the patient’s normal cognitive status and 10 is attributable to a state of drowsiness in which unconsciousness, due to sleep, can be recorded.
The brain-computer interface is, therefore, capable of detecting mental fatigue by simply reading and translating the electrical signals emitted by the neurons in the brain.
