Chapter 954
Future Development Directions of Brain-Computer Interface Technology
As Fang Gang was introducing the team's attempts to solve these technical problems, Wang Donglai suddenly raised his hand to signal him to stop.
Fang Gang stopped talking and subconsciously tightened his grip on the laser pointer in his hand.
Wang Donglai raised an eyebrow slightly: "Regarding the gelatinous scar issue you mentioned, what materials are you currently using?"
Without any pleasantries or gradual guidance, they went straight to the core technical pain points.
Fang Gang paused for a moment, then quickly reported the data: "Currently, a platinum-iridium alloy is being used, with a nano-level roughening treatment on the surface. However, three months after implantation, gel-like scars will cover about 40% of the electrode surface, and the signal attenuation will exceed 30%."
Wang Donglai remained silent.
He leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on a virtual point in mid-air, his right index finger tapping lightly on the table.
This action occurred precisely when Wang Donglai was thinking.
Fang Gang held his breath, not daring to disturb him.
Within about three seconds, Wang Donglai had an idea and said, "Use the bio-soil as a conductive coating to reduce the roughness of the electrode surface from the nanometer level to the sub-nanometer level. The gelatinous scar is not 'inhibited', it is not about using a drug coating to counteract physiological reactions, but about fundamentally making the immune system 'unable to sense' the existence of this foreign object. When the surface is smooth to the same order of magnitude as the cell membrane, immune cells will not be able to find a grip to attach to and attack."
He spoke quickly, but each word was as clear as if it were engraved on a metal plate. He picked up a pen from the table and wrote down a few key parameters on a sticky note: roughness, superconducting coating thickness, and charge injection limit.
"The zero-resistance properties of the soil can significantly reduce the heat generated during charge injection, and heat stimulation itself is one of the main causes of inflammatory responses. Low roughness combined with low heat cuts off both pathways simultaneously, slowing down the formation rate of gelatinous scars by at least an order of magnitude."
"At the same time, we will design a new code excitation mode by utilizing the superconducting properties of the soil."
His pen didn't stop; he continued drawing diagrams on the sticky note.
"We changed the charge injection limit of the electrodes from monophasic pulses to multiphasic micropulse sequences. Monophasic high-current stimulation would 'stun' the surrounding neurons, resulting in poor signal resolution. The intensity of each pulse in multiphasic micropulses is controlled within the linear response region of the neuron, which can accurately activate the target neuron without interfering with irrelevant regions."
He put down his pen, looked at Fang Gang, and said, "Can this plan be technically implemented? Can the Xirang coating be made using your existing micro-nano processing technology? Go back and discuss this with the materials team, and give me an answer within three days."
Fang Gang stared at the diagram on the sticky note, and it was as if a lightning bolt had cleaved through the fog that had troubled him for countless sleepless nights.
He did consider solving the problem from the materials side, but his thinking remained stuck on the old path of "how to make the drug coating more effective" and "how to make the immunosuppression more thorough".
Wang Donglai changed the entire problem in just three breaths, instead of suppressing the immune response, he made the immune system unable to find its target.
This is not an optimization of technical parameters, but a reconstruction of the technical path.
"It can be done!"
Fang Gang blurted it out, his voice filled with excitement he himself was unaware of.
“We have already had several rounds of discussions with the materials lab. The fabrication process of the Xirang coating at the micro-nano scale was just verified last month. The parameter matching needs to be rerun, but there is no problem with the direction. I will produce a detailed feasibility report within three days.”
Wang Donglai nodded, without saying anything like "very good" or "as soon as possible," and simply turned to the next page of the proposal.
"Also, the decoding resolution you wrote in your plan is limited to 64 pixels. The root cause is not the electrode density, but the noise processing. Multiphase micropulse can improve the signal-to-noise ratio, but the framework of the decoding algorithm also needs to be changed accordingly. The current decoding model is based on traditional linear filtering, assuming that the signal and noise are independent. However, under the stimulation mode of multiphase micropulse, there will be a certain time coupling between the signal and noise, and the linear model will fail."
He picked up a pen and started writing on another sticky note.
"By shifting the decoding framework from the time domain to the wavelet domain, wavelet transform can extract features simultaneously along both the time and frequency axes, separating the coupling noise generated by multiphase pulses from the useful signal. We can take a bigger step by using a deep residual network for multi-layer filtering in the feature extraction layer, which has an order of magnitude higher nonlinear mapping capability than traditional analytical methods. We have already run preliminary verification in the background, and the decoding resolution has increased from 64 pixels to 256 pixels, with the signal-to-noise ratio improving by about 10 decibels."
Wa's voice rang out in the office at just the right moment, with a hint of restraint in her tone: "The simulation data has been sent to Director Fang's terminal. Please check it."
Fang Gang subconsciously glanced down at his phone; the screen was lit up, and a preview icon for an encrypted email popped up.
He didn't open it immediately, not because he wasn't interested, but because his mind was still processing the information from Wang Donglai's words.
He was not unfamiliar with concepts such as wavelet domain transform architecture, deep residual network multilayer filtering, and a signal-to-noise ratio improvement of nearly six times. He had even mentioned similar ideas at an internal technical discussion meeting last month.
However, he only made a directional suggestion that "we can give it a try." After evaluation, Dr. Li, who was in charge of the algorithm in the team, said that "it is theoretically feasible, but it requires a lot of labeled data and computing power." Then this direction was temporarily shelved and placed in the priority list of "starting after the resources are available."
Now, Wang Donglai has completed the initial verification using artificial intelligence and provided clear parameter indicators.
Fang Gang quietly put the sticky note away.
He told himself that all the nights he spent in the lab, the hair he lost, and the stomach he burned were all meaningful.
He may never catch up with the person in front of him, but at least he can make his team run faster than other teams.
At least, when Wang Donglai put forward these cross-dimensional solutions, his team was able to accept them and implement them.
After adjusting his mindset, Fang Gang brought the topic back to the core of the report: the specific plan for the "Thousand Talents Program".
He reopened the plan, flipped to the pages on resource allocation and execution path, and began to sort them out one by one: how to schedule surgeries, how to allocate rehabilitation resources, how to standardize data collection, and where the key points of ethical review are.
Each item comes with a detailed budget estimate and manpower requirements, and each item ends with the words "Pending Approval".
Wang Donglai listened without interrupting or looking at the details of the plan.
He sat there, waiting for Fang Gang to finish explaining the last point.
Fang Gang closed the plan and took a deep breath.
The office was quiet, with only the entire plan he had just laid out still echoing in his ears.
He was a little uncertain. These proposals had passed through his mind once, but the final fate still depended on Wang Donglai's word.
Wang Donglai tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.
Fang Gang felt a chill run down his spine, bracing himself for a fresh start.
"First, a scale of one thousand people is too small. We need to increase it fivefold to five thousand people."
Wang Donglai's voice was not loud, but every word was clear. "A thousand people can only verify the feasibility of the technology, and five thousand people are needed to verify its ability to be implemented on a large scale. Whether the surgical procedure can be standardized, whether the rehabilitation plan can be replicated, and whether data collection can be automated, these cannot be determined by dozens or hundreds of cases. They need to be tested by volume. Galaxy Technology will bear all costs. The premise is that all operations must be within the existing legal and ethical framework, and no compliance review process can be bypassed."
Fang Gang paused, his pen still.
Five thousand people!
When this number first came to mind, he felt not excitement, but a series of specific constraints: how to squeeze in operating room appointments, where to find rehabilitation therapists, and the unresolved issue of data collection standardization.
But in an instant, he suppressed his distracting thoughts.
This isn't about discussing with him whether or not to do it; it's about giving him direction, and leaving the remaining issues for him to resolve.
"Second, patient screening should be prioritized. Rural patients should be given priority, while urban patients should be postponed. Although both are blind, the situation is much more difficult for rural people than for urban people. Urban areas have tactile paving, voice-activated traffic lights, and screen reading devices provided by the Disabled Persons' Federation. What do rural people have? They walk on a dirt road their whole lives, and if they fall, no one will even know. Therefore, once the technology is truly mature, rural patients should be priced according to cost or even subsidized, and all efforts should be made to help these people get better first. For urban patients who can afford it, a reasonable treatment fee should be set, and a portion of the cost should be included in the commercial returns. This way, the project can be sustainable and we won't have to ask for money every year."
Wang Donglai spoke at a steady pace, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.
Fang Gang was stunned for a moment. He had thought that Wang Donglai might adjust the scale, adjust the technical architecture, or even completely overturn a certain module and start over, but he did not expect him to approach it from this angle. He was not trying to change the plan, but to change people's hearts.
His throat moved as if he wanted to say something, but then he felt it was unnecessary.
He simply nodded vigorously.
Wang Donglai didn't linger on this topic, continuing, "Third, in the field of brain-computer interfaces, don't just focus on the visual cortex. Hearing, language, motor control, and even memory and emotion regulation are all directions worth exploring in the future. The ability for a mute to speak, a deaf person to hear, and a paralyzed patient to stand up—these are not science fiction, but engineering problems. We should launch several sub-projects and advance them simultaneously."
He paused, glancing at Fang Gang.
"You should work with Baili Xiu and Academician Li more on this. Galaxy Bio has experience in drug development and gene therapy, materials science has the latest implantable devices, and aerospace has life support technology for extreme environments. If you integrate these resources, the field of brain-computer interfaces will be much larger than you see now."
Fang Gang quickly jotted it down in his notebook.
He knew the significance of this matter; it was no longer something that his small R&D team could decide, and it required coordination at the group level.
But Wang Donglai is right; brain-computer interfaces are not just about the visual cortex.
We didn't dare to think about it before because we didn't have enough technological accumulation; now that technology has reached this point, not daring to think about it is not being cautious, but being conservative.
"fourth."
Wang Donglai slowed down his speech a bit, but he didn't soften it.
"For this technology to be widely adopted, the operation cannot forever rely on a few experts manually adjusting it. We need to simplify and integrate the operating equipment, making the user interface so that trained technicians, caregivers, and even doctors in primary healthcare facilities can operate it. At the same time, we need to document the processes, compile clinical operation manuals, equipment manuals, troubleshooting guidelines, and postoperative care standards. All knowledge points should be documented, standardized, and replicable. Brain-computer interfaces are the core entry point for future information interaction and medical repair. Since we are at the forefront, we should take advantage of this window of opportunity to build a talent pool. We should train our own people and also open up some resources to the public. We don't need to completely dismantle the technological barriers all at once, but the ecosystem must be large. Only with more people involved can the technology iterate quickly and the industrial chain be complete."
By the end, Fang Gang had only one thought in his mind: This is not a project, but a complete industrial system and underlying architecture design.
Within minutes, Wang Donglai had flipped from the first page of the project to the very last chapter.
"Mr. Wang, I completely agree."
He engraved them in his heart, word by word.
"You've already pointed out the direction; I'll pave the way from here on out."
When he stood up, his hands were steady.
The unease and uncertainty I felt earlier vanished silently the moment I returned to the armrest of the chair.
He knew that he would be very busy and tired after today, and that a bunch of tricky problems would be waiting for him to solve.
But he wasn't panicked!
He paused as he walked toward the door, turned around to look at the person behind the desk who had switched back to the three-screen mode and started typing again, hesitated for a moment before speaking: "Mr. Wang, actually, I've been wanting to ask you a question."
The knocking didn't stop.
"Go ahead and ask."
"When did you start thinking about these technical solutions? Was it after you read our report, or had you been thinking about them all along?"
Wang Donglai didn't look at him, but simply said, "It's not important. What's important is that you can make it."
When Fang Gang walked out of Wang Donglai's office, the corridor was empty.
He stood at the door for a while, took out the sticky notes from his briefcase, and looked at them one by one.
The soil coating, multiphase micropulse, wavelet domain decoding, and deep residual network—each solution is as precise as surgery, without any unnecessary trials or ambiguity of "maybe we can give it a try."
This is the distance between him and Wang Donglai—not a gap in knowledge reserves, but a gap in the dimension of thinking.
While he was solving equations on a two-dimensional plane, the other person was already drawing the answer in three-dimensional space.
Therefore, he neither competes nor is jealous.
Jealousy only occurs between people of similar abilities.
When the gap becomes large enough, jealousy disappears, leaving only awe and a strange calm.
He knew he could never catch up with that person in his lifetime, but he could make his team get closer to that person.
He carefully tucked the sticky note into his notebook, closed his briefcase, and headed towards the laboratory.
I have to work overtime tonight. No, starting today, I'll be working overtime for a long time to come.
But the feeling of working overtime is different now. Before, it was like walking in the dark, not knowing whether there was a mountain or a river ahead.
Now someone has turned on the searchlights. The road is there, very steep and difficult to walk, but it is visible.
If you can see the road, you won't be afraid to walk on it! (End of Chapter)