Nissan's Brain Wave Project Could Help You Drive by Reading Your Mind

As I sit down in Nissan's simulator, I prepare myself for the fact that a cohort of researchers could scrutinize my skills as a wheelman with more rigor than the most aggravating backseat driver. And, I accept that this process involves wearing what looks like a too-small, sideways bicycle helmet, which holds 11 electrodes poking through my hair. "For each corner, there'll be an evaluation of your driving smoothness," says Lucian Gheorghe, the Nissan researcher in charge of this rig. Gheorghe is interested in motor related potentials, a specific pattern of activity the brain creates as it prepares to move a limb. It takes half a second for the body to translate that signal to the wave of an arm or kick of a leg, and Nissan wants to exploit the gap.