Are Brain-Computer Interfaces Feasible With Integrated Photonic Chips?

Vahid Salari; Serafim Rodrigues; Erhan Saglamyurek; Christoph Simon; Daniel Oblak

doi:10.3389/fnins.2021.780344

Are Brain-Computer Interfaces Feasible With Integrated Photonic Chips?

Front Neurosci. 2022 Jan 7:15:780344. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.780344. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Vahid Salari^{1

2}, Serafim Rodrigues¹, Erhan Saglamyurek^{3

4

5}, Christoph Simon^{3

5

6}, Daniel Oblak^{3

5}

Affiliations

¹ Basque Center for Applied Mathematics (BCAM), Bilbao, Spain.
² Quantum Biology Laboratory, Howard University, Washington, DC, United States.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
⁵ Institute for Quantum Science and Technology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
⁶ Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.

Abstract

The present paper examines the viability of a radically novel idea for brain-computer interface (BCI), which could lead to novel technological, experimental, and clinical applications. BCIs are computer-based systems that enable either one-way or two-way communication between a living brain and an external machine. BCIs read-out brain signals and transduce them into task commands, which are performed by a machine. In closed loop, the machine can stimulate the brain with appropriate signals. In recent years, it has been shown that there is some ultraweak light emission from neurons within or close to the visible and near-infrared parts of the optical spectrum. Such ultraweak photon emission (UPE) reflects the cellular (and body) oxidative status, and compelling pieces of evidence are beginning to emerge that UPE may well play an informational role in neuronal functions. In fact, several experiments point to a direct correlation between UPE intensity and neural activity, oxidative reactions, EEG activity, cerebral blood flow, cerebral energy metabolism, and release of glutamate. Therefore, we propose a novel skull implant BCI that uses UPE. We suggest that a photonic integrated chip installed on the interior surface of the skull may enable a new form of extraction of the relevant features from the UPE signals. In the current technology landscape, photonic technologies are advancing rapidly and poised to overtake many electrical technologies, due to their unique advantages, such as miniaturization, high speed, low thermal effects, and large integration capacity that allow for high yield, volume manufacturing, and lower cost. For our proposed BCI, we are making some very major conjectures, which need to be experimentally verified, and therefore we discuss the controversial parts, feasibility of technology and limitations, and potential impact of this envisaged technology if successfully implemented in the future.

Keywords: brain-computer interface; integrated photonic circuit; on-chip photon detection; pattern recognition; photonic interferometry; quantum technology; ultraweak photon emission.