At the end of 2020, the European University Association called NeurotechEU, created for the development of neurosciences, was launched with the leading higher education institutions in eight countries, including the University of Debrecen. The robotics projects in Debrecen outline a very exciting, yet thought-provoking vision of the future. We interviewed Péter Szűcs, the director of the Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology of the University of Debrecen, and the Scientific Director of NeuroTech Debrecen.
What is your role in NeurotechEU’s projects in Debrecen?
My function is a kind of catalyst role in this. When NeurotechEU started at the university, it was not exactly outlined what it would do. Everyone immediately thought of neuroscience and neurobiology, and we didn’t really see how we were going to do this together. There were two changes in the project when the entire “brain” was replaced by the consortium leader. After the last change, Dutchman Paul Verschure came up with an interpretable vision, which already concretizes the concept of neurotechnology. He then defined that it has separate dimensions and includes neuroscience itself, clinical neuroscience, and robotics and neuroinformatics. But the law faculty can also have an interesting task, even criminal law issues may arise. In this way, we were able to more easily determine with whom we should cooperate at the University of Debrecen.
This is how the collaboration between the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Informatics began to take shape in Debrecen. That’s when I met Professor Péter Korondy from the Faculty of Engineering, who was introduced to me by Csilla Csukonyi, who heads the Institute of Psychology at the Faculty of Humanities. Professor Korondy brought various robotics research from Budapest to Debrecen, and he introduced me to the concept of social robotics. He then invited us to participate in an interdisciplinary research group. For the time being, I have the role of bringing the team together and connecting it to NeurotechEU, because I still don’t see how we can integrate my own research area, the basic neurobiological aspects of pain research, into this one at a time.
It is very exciting to be involved in robotics research because I have admired these creations since my childhood reading science fiction. According to my hopes, something will emerge from this, such that electrical signaling from neurons will be able to appear in robotics, either with devices controlled by electrical signals or by incorporating the operating principle of the basic networks formed by neurons.
How biology can help robotics is a big question, since evolution has already solved a lot of things. For example, robots can have autonomous parts, based on the example of the human spinal cord, with subtasks that are not performed by their central control.
A Japanese professor claims to have succeeded in connecting neurons with a computer.
What exactly happened was that one of our collaborating partners, Naoki Kogo, connected neurons to each other in such a way that they were not actually biologically connected. He established a mechanical connection between them, and although they were in one place during the experiment, this possibility would also have ensured that even neurons in a distant room or distant places could be coordinated to form a network. This is very exciting because it allows you to see how diseased cells work in a normal nerve cell network – without causing disease.
I never dealt with this kind of neurological connection, but my colleagues and I modeled neural networks based on real biological connections. Currently, a Portuguese-Spanish-Hungarian collaboration application for a biological model system that can be used to study the initial transformation steps of painfully degenerating discs is awaiting evaluation. The science fiction part of it is that there are already stimulators that can be attached to sensory bumps located along the spinal column and can reduce pain with electrodes placed on them. This is, of course, a double-edged sword, because pain is an important sign, and if we mask it, it is possible that the patient will take less care of himself.
Has the chip built into the monkey’s brain and moving the animal’s arm been fully accepted, or was it just an experiment?
We come across more and more prostheses in trade journals that can actually be controlled with thoughts, i.e. with electrical signals read from the nervous system. The signals do not necessarily have to be read with an invasive device, an electrode cap also solves the task. I don’t know that they would routinely use them, but regardless, there is the possibility that they could be used in human applications as well. These interventions are very spectacular and have brilliant ideas behind them, but there is still a lot of small work that needs to be done to make them sustainable, economical and operable in the long term. The human body defends itself against foreign objects inserted in the long term, and these experiments tend to become problematic when, after half a year or a year, the electrode becomes less sensitive to the nerve signals necessary for regulation. We don’t yet understand exactly how the brain handles them. It will be an exciting thing to use imaging procedures to examine the brain patterns of people living with prostheses and figure out what is going on from this.
Does Neurotech’s research include mind reading?
In any case, the technologies used for this, especially the computer technology part – which decodes the signals and converts them into words – belong to the field of neuroinformatics. This kind of signal analysis is already a bit terrifying, and although for now the software works more by force, and speed is the priority, when they are advanced enough they will become smarter so that intuition also appears in the system, then you really can and should think about how do we regulate this.
Will we get to the point where robots will read our thoughts?
I don’t think it’s out of the question, but I’m not sure that it must be allowed. The technical possibilities will be given for this, and it is also tempting to communicate with robots as simply as possible. Mind reading is like that, and as long as I’m communicating with a robotic arm attached to me that way, that’s fine, but a completely separate robot that I operate with my thoughts is not necessarily so. We have to be very careful about how much we hand over the art of our thinking to either robots or artificial intelligence.
Won’t it be the same here, as with artificial intelligence, that the creator regrets that the studies were made public and that the tool can be used for bad purposes?
It is certain that there will be, and perhaps there already are, those who use the achievements for bad purposes. With a prosthesis, for example, you can not only replace a lost limb, but also improve a healthy limb. The lively interest is also shown by the fact that the ministries of defense and the military industry are major supporters of research into the brain-machine connection worldwide. It can be a dangerous thing, of course, but it’s no more dangerous than anything a person can hold and kill with. Because unfortunately what a person can do to harm others, he will do so based on historical experience.
What results can be expected in the near future in terms of the realization of NeurotechEU’s goals?
I see the creation of the social robotics working group as the first and most important result. On the one hand, we can directly apply the results of any neurotechnological development in healing, and on the other hand, we could effectively participate in their fine-tuning and development, because we have a huge “patient population” at our disposal in Debrecen. The needs meet because they want to be cured, and we want to provide them with better and better treatment. Most of all, I see a perspective now in the fact that these developments appear in brain stimulation procedures, medical imaging, as well as in prostheses and limbs controlled by biological signals, as well as in robotic surgery.
Software that supports decision-making and diagnosis will eventually become essential in medicine. They don’t get tired, they don’t have a bad mood, and they don’t have eight coffees in them to stay awake. But I hope that for a very long time, it will take a person even to notice things that are out of the ordinary.
Robots also provide a great service in surgical interventions, especially in surgeries – such as pelvic surgeries – where small formulas have to be selected and separated in a very small area. Robot-assisted surgery is quite expensive, and I would venture that the waiting list is longer due to the limited capacity. For neurotechnological developments, however, it is important that they are as easily accessible as possible (free source code systems, things that can be assembled from parts that can be produced with a 3D printer). If they become more widespread, we can gain much more experience with and about them.
For which diseases can patients expect to receive successful treatment in a few years thanks to developing neurotechnology?
First of all, they will perhaps come into consideration in the case of neurodegenerative diseases. I am thinking here of Parkinson’s disease, one of whose main symptoms, tremors, can already be effectively reduced with neurotechnology. Progress can also be expected in the treatment of diseases associated with movement disorders and paralysis. Artificial intelligence can be of great help in any imaging examination.
In the case of mental problems, the situation is different, because, in my opinion, we are still very far from understanding consciousness. What we know about the biology of the brain is still far from being able to provide any direct evidence for the functioning of consciousness. Until we understand what exactly is going on in our brains, progress is a bit of a trial and error.
First, I think it will be possible to restore vision, then hearing, and touch, so first the neural functions of establishing contact with the outside world and the senses will be able to be effectively helped, triggered and improved with neurotechnologies.
Will robotic assistance be possible for diseases of genetic origin?
The question is what is the consequence of the genetic change. If, for example, it is a movement disorder, then yes, because the problem can be avoided with, say, another neuromuscular connection. At the same time, for example, Down’s disease is a complex set of symptoms, so I don’t think that we will be able to cure diseases like this in the first instance. However, artificial intelligence will certainly be of great help to doctors in the diagnosis of the disease. In the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, we can also rely less on, say, artificial intelligence, but it will be of great use in disease-related nerve cell tests.
– Sándor N. Nagy –
