yunkslab

KAIST 바이오및뇌공학과 소식지 인터뷰 2013년 11월

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 09:58:00 +0000

Kaist 바이오뇌공학과 소식지 인터뷰 from Kyongsik Yun

동아사이언스 '응사' 윤진, 술 마시면 횡설수설하는 이유 알고보니..

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 09:57:00 +0000

동아사이언스 '응사' 윤진, 술 마시면 횡설수설하는 이유 알고보니.. from Kyongsik Yun

Alcohol reduces EEG coupling

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 01:18:00 +0000

Jaewon Lee, Kyongsik Yun, Alcohol reduces cross-frequency theta-phase gamma-amplitude coupling in resting electroencephalography (2013) Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (LINK) (PDF)

Alcohol reduces EEG coupling from Kyongsik Yun

[SfN 2013 poster] Neural correlates of "flow"

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 20:42:00 +0000

[SfN 2013] Neural correlates of flow from Kyongsik Yun

2013 Korean Neuromodulation Society

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 20:42:00 +0000

Presenting our up-to-date brain control technology in the Korean Neuromodulation Society!

2013 대한신경조절학회 추계 심포지움 from Kyongsik Yun

[NBC news] A zap to the brain makes you think people are more attractive

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 00:45:00 +0000

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/zap-brain-makes-you-think-people-are-more-attractive-6C10399842

A zap to the brain makes you think people are more attractive

Meghan HolohanNBC News

Charles Sykes / AP

Most of us can't actually be as attractive as professional good-looking people like Kate Upton. But new research shows that an electrical shock to the brain can make people perceive other people to be more attractive. The research may one day point toward new treatments for neurological disorders like depression or Parkinson's.

[동아일보] 피오나 공주가 백설공주로

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 04:24:00 +0000

동아일보(2013년 6월14일)에 연구가 소개되었습니다.

http://news.donga.com/East/3/all/20130614/55851212/1

[동아일보] 피오나 공주가 백설공주로 from Kyongsik Yun

[Science] Beer goggles for your brain

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 04:10:00 +0000

Our work featured in Science news of the week.

[Science] Beer goggles for your brain from Kyongsik Yun

Noninvasive Remote Activation of the Ventral Midbrain by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of Prefrontal Cortex

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 03:34:00 +0000

Vikram Chib*, Kyongsik Yun*, Hidehiko Takahashi, Shinsuke Shimojo. Noninvasive Remote Activation of the Ventral Midbrain by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of Prefrontal Cortex, (2013) Translational Psychiatry (LINK)

*These authors contributed equally to this work.

The midbrain lies deep within the brain and has an important role in reward, motivation, movement and the pathophysiology of various neuropsychiatric disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, depression and addiction. To date, the primary means of acting on this region has been with pharmacological interventions or implanted electrodes. Here we introduce a new noninvasive brain stimulation technique that exploits the highly interconnected nature of the midbrain and prefrontal cortex to stimulate deep brain regions. Using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the prefrontal cortex, we were able to remotely activate the interconnected midbrain and cause increases in participants’ appraisals of facial attractiveness. Participants with more enhanced prefrontal/midbrain connectivity following stimulation exhibited greater increases in attractiveness ratings. These results illustrate that noninvasive direct stimulation of prefrontal cortex can induce neural activity in the distally connected midbrain, which directly effects behavior. Furthermore, these results suggest that this tDCS protocol could provide a promising approach to modulate midbrain functions that are disrupted in neuropsychiatric disorders.

On the same wavelength

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Sun, 05 May 2013 14:44:00 +0000

Kyongsik Yun, On the Same Wavelength: Face-to-Face Communication Increases Interpersonal Neural Synchronization (2013) Journal of Neuroscience (link)

On the Same Wavelength: Face-to-Face Communication Increases Interpersonal Neural Synchronization from Kyongsik Yun

Kyongsik's paper has been featured in the Futurity top stories!

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 02:03:00 +0000

http://www.futurity.org/top-stories/bonding-can-make-us-move-in-unison/

Kyongsik's paper is on the rank 1 of the top emailed content!

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 01:53:00 +0000

Interpersonal body and neural synchronization as a marker of implicit social interaction

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 01:50:00 +0000

Yun K, Watanabe K, Shimojo S. Interpersonal body and neural synchronization as a marker of implicit social interaction. Scientific Reports. 2012. (LINK)

One may have experienced his or her footsteps unconsciously synchronize with the footsteps of a friend while walking together, or heard an audience's clapping hands naturally synchronize into a steady rhythm. However, the mechanisms of body movement synchrony and the role of this phenomenon in implicit interpersonal interactions remain unclear. We aimed to evaluate unconscious body movement synchrony changes as an index of implicit interpersonal interaction between the participants, and also to assess the underlying neural correlates and functional connectivity among and within the brain regions. We found that synchrony of both fingertip movement and neural activity between the two participants increased after cooperative interaction. These results suggest that the increase of interpersonal body movement synchrony via interpersonal interaction can be a measurable basis of implicit social interaction. The paradigm provides a tool for identifying the behavioral and the neural correlates of implicit social interaction.

The 7th APCTP-KAIST School for Brain Dynamics

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 02:22:00 +0000

Modulation of theta phase synchronization in the human electroencephalogram during a recognition memory task

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 16:54:00 +0000

Sung-Phil Kim, Jae-Hwan Kang, Seong-Hyun Choe, Ji Woon Jeong, Hyun Taek Kim, Kyongsik Yun, Jaeseung Jeong and Seung-Hwan Lee, "Modulation of theta phase synchronization in the human electroencephalogram during a recognition memory task" (2012) Neuroreport (LINK) (PDF)

To the extent that recognition memory relies on interactions among widely distributed neural assemblies across the brain, phase synchronization between brain rhythms may play an important role in meditating those interactions. As the theta rhythm is known to modulate in power during the recognition memory process, we aimed to determine how the phase synchronization of the theta rhythms across the brain changes with recognition memory. Fourteen human participants performed a visual object recognition task in a virtual reality environment. Electroencephalograms were recorded from the scalp of the participants while they either recognized objects that had been presented previously or identified new objects. From the electroencephalogram recordings, we analyzed the phase-locking value of the theta rhythms, which indicates the degree of phase synchronization. We found that the overall phase-locking value recorded during the recognition of previously viewed objects was greater than that recorded during the identification of new objects. Specifically, the theta rhythms became strongly synchronized between the frontal and the left parietal areas during the recognition of previously viewed objects. These results suggest that the recognition memory process may involve an interaction between the frontal and the left parietal cortical regions mediated by theta phase synchronization.

Decreased cortical complexity in methamphetamine abusers

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:41:00 +0000

Kyongsik Yun, Hee-Kwon Park, Do-Hoon Kwon, Yang-Tae Kim, Sung-Nam Cho, Hyun-Jin Cho, Bradley S. Peterson, Jaeseung Jeong. "Decreased cortical complexity in methamphetamine abusers" (2012) Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging (LINK) (PDF)

This study aimed to investigate if methamphetamine (MA) abusers exhibit alterations in complexity of the electroencephalogram (EEG) and to determine if these possible alterations are associated with their abuse patterns. EEGs were recorded from 48 former MA-dependent males and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects. Approximate Entropy (ApEn), an information-theoretical measure of irregularity, of the EEGs was estimated to quantify the degree of cortical complexity. The ApEn values in MA abusers were significantly lower than those of healthy subjects in most of the cortical regions, indicating decreased cortical complexity of MA abusers, which may be associated with impairment in specialization and integration of cortical activities owing to MA abuse. Moreover, ApEn values exhibited significant correlations with the clinical factors including abuse patterns, symptoms of psychoses, and their concurrent drinking and smoking habits. These findings provide insights into abnormal information processing in MA abusers and suggest that ApEn of EEG recordings may be used as a potential supplementary tool for quantitative diagnosis of MA abuse. This is the first investigation to assess the “severity-dependent dynamical complexity” of EEG patterns in former MA abusers and their associations with the subjects' abuse patterns and other clinical measures.

Research keywords

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Sun, 01 May 2011 05:21:00 +0000

Mathematically Gifted Adolescents Have Deficiencies in Social Valuation and Mentalization

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:03:00 +0000

Yun K, Chung D, Jang B, Kim JH, Jeong J (2011) Mathematically Gifted Adolescents Have Deficiencies in Social Valuation and Mentalization. PLoS ONE 6(4): e18224. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018224 (LINK) (PDF)

Many mathematically gifted adolescents are characterized as being indolent, underachieving and unsuccessful despite their high cognitive ability. This is often due to difficulties with social and emotional development. However, research on social and emotional interactions in gifted adolescents has been limited. The purpose of this study was to observe differences in complex social strategic behaviors between gifted and average adolescents of the same age using the repeated Ultimatum Game. Twenty-two gifted adolescents and 24 average adolescents participated in the Ultimatum Game. Two adolescents participate in the game, one as a proposer and the other as a responder. Because of its simplicity, the Ultimatum Game is an apt tool for investigating complex human emotional and cognitive decision-making in an empirical setting. We observed strategic but socially impaired offers from gifted proposers and lower acceptance rates from gifted responders, resulting in lower total earnings in the Ultimatum Game. Thus, our results indicate that mathematically gifted adolescents have deficiencies in social valuation and mentalization.

Gifted adolescents are less sensitive to loss, yet more sensitive to gain in public goods game

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:01:00 +0000

Chung D, Yun K, Kim JH, Jang B, Jeong J (2011) Different Gain/Loss Sensitivity and Social Adaptation Ability in Gifted Adolescents during a Public Goods Game. PLoS ONE 6(2): e17044. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017044 (LINK) (PDF)

Gifted adolescents are considered to have high IQs with advanced mathematical and logical performances, but are often thought to suffer from social isolation or emotional mal-adaptation to the social group. The underlying mechanisms that cause stereotypic portrayals of gifted adolescents are not well known. We aimed to investigate behavioral performance of gifted adolescents during social decision-making tasks to assess their affective and social/non-social cognitive abilities. We examined cooperation behaviors of 22 gifted and 26 average adolescents during an iterative binary public goods (PG) game, a multi-player social interaction game, and analyzed strategic decision processes that include cooperation and free-riding. We found that the gifted adolescents were more cooperative than average adolescents. Particularly, comparing the strategies for the PG game between the two groups, gifted adolescents were less sensitive to loss, yet were more sensitive to gain. Additionally, the behavioral characteristics of average adolescents, such as low trust of the group and herding behavior, were not found in gifted adolescents. These results imply that gifted adolescents have a high cognitive ability but a low ability to process affective information or to adapt in social groups compared with average adolescents. We conclude that gain/loss sensitivity and the ability to adapt in social groups develop to different degrees in average and gifted adolescents.

Thesis Acknowledgments

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:20:00 +0000

First, I would like to thank my advisor, Prof. Jaeseung Jeong, for his encouragement, guidance and support over the last five years. He showed me how to draw a big picture of neuroscience and guided me in the right direction. I believe I have learned from him three significant aspects of an excellent scientist: motivation, independence, and multi-tasking. Under his wholehearted guidance, I have been able to become a highly motivated, independent, and well-organized scientist.

I would like to thank Prof. Chun Kee Chung at the MEG center, Department of Neurosurgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, for his academic guidance, insightful discussions, and inspirational comments during my MEG research project. I would also like to thank Prof. June Sic Kim for his support in figuring out the technical difficulties in the MEG analysis and for his invaluable advice and contribution as a member of my thesis committee. Without these mentors’ teaching and support, my MEG project would have not been possible. I am also grateful to Miriam and Youngmin for their assistance in conducting the MEG experiment.

I would like to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Yang-Tae Kim in the Department of Psychiatry, Bugok National Hospital and Hee-Kwon Park in the Department of Neurology, Seoul National University Hospital. Dr. Yang-Tae Kim provided invaluable opportunities to study psychiatric patients, including those with schizophrenia and methamphetamine addiction. Dr. Hee-Kwon Park was the co-first author of my first paper about methamphetamine addiction and his contribution was crucial. With such support, I was able to experience the whole process of research—experimental design, experimentation, data analysis and manuscript preparation—for the first time. As a result of this research collaboration, the question of why people, including addicts and schizophrenics, make irrational decisions has attracted my attention. This was the initial motivation for studying issues related to a broad range of human decision making. I also would like to thank Prof. Alexander D. Shin for teaching me the techniques of SCID and for giving me the invaluable experience of clinical interviews with psychiatric patients. I warmly thank Dongil, Anna, and Yoon Sol for their friendly help conducting the interviews. Many thanks go in particular to Dongil, to whom I am much indebted for his support in EEG experiments, for his valuable advice, and for his critical comments throughout the whole process of my research. His contribution in much of my EEG work was crucial, especially in the EEG hyperscanning system development.

I would also like to acknowledge Prof. Hyojeong Lee in the Department of Physical Therapy, Chung Ju National University and ChoJeong Hospital, for providing opportunities to study Alzheimer’s patients. I am very grateful to WooHyun and Dongil for their support in EEG experiments on Alzheimer’s patients. My special thanks go to senior participants for their generous contributions.

To Dr. Po-Song Yang and Min Jeong Kwon in the Department of Radiology, St. Mary’s Hospital of the Catholic University, thank you for giving me the opportunity to perform fMRI experiments. I also gratefully acknowledge a former lab member, Seungyeon, currently at Google, for his contribution to my fMRI studies. It gave me great pleasure to work with him.

I would like to thank patent attorney Kangwook Kim at the H&H International Patent and Law Office for his support in preparing my EEG hyperscanning system patent application. To Seongmin in the Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST, it was a joy to collaborate with you. With your support, I was able to extend my knowledge and interests to the fascinating field of neuroesthetics. I feel a deep sense of gratitude to a former lab member, Su-Min, currently in the Drug Development Center at SK Corporation, for her teaching and support in EEG experimental techniques. I wish to thank undergraduate research students Bosun and Jin Ho for their assistance in behavioral experiments. I am also grateful to a former lab member, Hansem, currently in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Seoul National University, for his very positive academic stimulus. I would like to thank Founder and Head Coach Hoh Kim at THE LAB h for his kind support and insightful discussions.

Thanks as well to all other current and former BDL members, including Jaewon, Minho, Jeongwon, Hyeran, Hyoungkyu, Seongkyun, Yong Wook, Charles, Kwangyeol, Hankyul, Hoon Hee, Yunkyu, Mehwish, Kanghoon, Heekyoung, Ryukjun, Amber, and MooKyoung for providing a creative and exciting environment in which to learn and grow.

Besides my advisor and collaborators, I would like to thank my thesis committee: Prof. Kwang-Hyun Cho, Yong-An Chung, Yong Jeong, and June Sic Kim.

During the course of this work, I was supported in part by a Cognitive Brain Research Grant (2006 – 2010), a Graduate Student Research Grant (2008) from the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF), and a KAIST Research Grant (2006 – 2007). I would like to acknowledge the support given by the Marie Curie Fellowship, which allowed me to take part in programs at the Marie Curie School in Neuroscience in l’Aquila, Italy (2008), and also support given by the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, which allowed me to take part in an Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course (2008) in Okinawa, Japan. I was able to gain the invaluable experience of interacting with passionate scientists from around the world.

I am also greatly indebted to many teachers in the past. I would like to thank Prof. Soo-Young Lee. His Neural Information Processing Algorithm course was the best class I have ever taken. This class definitely inspired me to study neuroscience and computational modeling. To Prof. Doheon Lee, thank you for giving me the bright vision of the Department of Bio and Brain engineering, which was a new department in KAIST when I was a freshman. Prof. Lee gave me confidence and fostered my motivation to make the challenging and ambitious choice to join his department. I would like to thank Prof. Je-Kyun Park for his support and advice as my undergraduate academic advisor. I have especially to mention Prof. In Gyu Koh in the Department of Physics, KAIST. I was deeply inspired by his passion for research.

I conclude with the words of Moon Soul Chung, who foresaw the fusion of the disciplines of bio and information technology gaining prominence in the future and who made a donation to form the department where I have studied for the last eight years.

“Foster talent and develop technology that will feed and support the future.”

[PhD Thesis] Neural mechanisms of decision making in the Ultimatum Game in the context of interactions between emotion and reason

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 22:48:00 +0000

Yun PhD thesis.pdf

This thesis aims to understand neural mechanisms of high-level cognitive decision making in the context of complex interactions between emotion and reason. To achieve this goal, I made three major approaches.

1. Neuroscience: Understanding spatiotemporal dynamics of high-level cognitive decision making.

2. Neuromedicine: Understanding functional connectivity in schizophrenia during complex social and emotional decision making

3. Neuroengineering: Development of EEG hyperscanning system

The purpose of the first approach was to provide answers to the where and when questions of cortical activation with high spatiotemporal resolution using magnetoencephalographies (MEGs) and to investigate effective connectivity between regions of the brain, with the goal of extending our understanding of the information transmission mechanisms that underlie high-level cognitive decision making. This is the first study to investigate spatiotemporal dynamics of high-level cognitive decision making using MEGs. The results presented here suggest that MEG is an optimal tool for investigating the neural mechanisms underlying the decision-making process. The purpose of the second approach was to investigate local and long-range cortical disconnections or dysfunctions in schizophrenic patients and then to assess the underlying dynamics and functional connectivity between certain brain regions. The reported findings support the notion that impaired local and long range synchronization can both establish underlying mechanisms of dysfunctional complex decision-making in schizophrenic patients. The purpose of the third approach was to develop an EEG hyperscanning system to evaluate social and emotional interactions between the two players, and then to assess the underlying dynamics and the effective connectivity between and within the brain regions of the two players. This is the first study to analyze temporal dynamics and social interactions in human decision-making using simultaneous EEG recordings. We believe that the use of EEG hyperscanning methodology in the present study opens up new prospects for investigating the brain activities of two people during real-life face-to-face social interactions.

Keywords: decision making, theory of mind, social interaction, EEG, MEG, Ultimatum Game

본 박사학위논문은 감정과 이성의 복잡한 상호작용 관점에서 고등의사결정과정의 신경메커니즘을 이해하는 것을 목표로 한다. 이 목표를 이루기 위해 세 가지 중요한 접근을 시도하였다.

1. 뇌과학: 고등의사결정과정의 시공간적 동역학 이해

2. 뇌의학: 복잡한 사회적/감정적 의사결정과정 동안 정신분열증의기능적 연결성 이해

3. 뇌공학: 뇌파(EEG) 동시측정시스템 개발

첫 번째 접근의 목적은, 높은 시공간적 해상도를 가지는 뇌자도(MEG)를 이용하여 대뇌활성화가 언제 어디에서 일어나는지에 대한 해답을 제시하고,뇌의 각 영역 사이의 효과적 연결성(effective connectivity)을 조사하여, 고등의사결정의 기저를 이루는 정보교환 메커니즘을 이해하는 것이다. 본 연구는 뇌자도를 이용한 고등의사결정과정의 시공간적 동역학을 탐구하는 최초 시도이다. 본 연구의 결과는 뇌자도가 의사결정과정의 기저를 이루는 신경 메커니즘을 탐구하기 위한 최적의 도구임을 제안하였다. 두 번째 접근의목적은, 정신분열증 환자의 근거리와 장거리 대뇌 단절 및 기능 장애를 탐구하고, 특정 뇌 영역 간의 기저동역학과 기능적 연결성을 평가하는 것이다. 본 연구의 결과는, 약화한 근거리와 장거리 동기화가 모두 정신분열증환자의 복잡한 의사결정 장애에 대한 기저 메커니즘을 확립할 수 있다는 개념을 지지한다. 세 번째 접근의 목적은, 두 사람 사이의 사회적/감정적 상호작용을 평가하기 위한 뇌파 동시측정시스템을 개발하고, 이를 이용하여 두사람 사이의 뇌 영역 및 두 사람 각각의 뇌 영역의 기저동역학과 효과적 연결성을 분석하는 것이다. 본 연구는 뇌파 동시측정시스템을 이용하여 의사결정과정의 시계열 동역학과 사회적 상호작용을 분석한 최초 시도이다. 본연구의 뇌파 동시측정 방법론은 얼굴을 마주 보는 실제 상황에서 사회적 상호작용에서의 뇌 활성화 분석 연구를 위한 새로운 가능성을 열었다.

핵심어: 의사결정, 마음이론(theory of mind) 사회적 상호작용, 뇌파, 뇌자도, 최후통첩게임

뇌기능맵핑학회 2010 리뷰

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 05:34:00 +0000

안녕하세요. 2010년 08월 05일 KOSEN에서 알려드립니다.

윤경식님께서 KOSEN의 뇌기능맵핑학회 2010 (을)를 추천하셨습니다.

KOSEN은 과학기술부 재원으로 전 세계 한인 과학기술인력을 지원하고, 동포 과학기술인들 간 유대를 강화하고자 구축된 사이트입니다. 현재 한국과학기술정보연구원이 운영을 담당하고 있으며, KOSEN 홈페이지를 통해 가입하신 분께 모든 자료를 무상으로 제공합니다.

많은 참여와 관심 부탁드립니다. 감사합니다.

[HBM2010] MEG Ultimatum Game

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 07:30:00 +0000

Kyongsik Yun, June Sic Kim, Chun Kee Chung, and Jaeseung Jeong, "Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Decision Making in the Ultimatum Game using MEG", Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Barcelona, Spain, June 6-10, Poster Presentation

2010HBM MEG.pdf

[HBM2010] EEG hyperscanning

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 07:24:00 +0000

Kyongsik Yun, Dongil Chung, and Jaeseung Jeong, Jaeseung Jeong. “Simultaneous EEG Hyperscanning during Linked Social Interactions of the Ultimatum Game”, Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Barcelona, Spain, June 6-10, Poster Presentation

2010HBM EEG hyperscan.pdf

쇼트트랙 판정시비의 뇌과학적 해결방법

noreply@blogger.com (Kyongsik Yun) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:38:00 +0000

2월 25일 쇼트트랙 여자 3,000m 계주 결승전.

"슉슉쇽쇽" 한국의 마지막 주자 김민정이 중국 선수의 안쪽을 파고들며 선두로 나섰다. 이 과정에서 김민정선수의 오른손이 중국 선수의 몸에 닿았다. 중국 선수가 살짝 휘청하는 사이 김민정 선수는 앞으로 치고 나갔고, 독주 끝에 1위로 결승선을 통과했다.

또 한 번 역전의 드라마가 완성되는 듯했다. 하지만, 기쁨도 잠시, 심판진은 한국이 중국선수를 밀었다며 실격 판정을 내렸다. (impeding 선언)

핵심은 김민정선수가 코너에서 추월하는 과정에서 팔의 움직임에 중국선수의 진로를 방해하려는 고의성이 있었느냐이다.

"진로방해 의도"

의도는 비디오 판독으로 알아내기 어렵다. 심판의 주관이 크게 작용할 수밖에 없다. 객관화하는 방법이 없을까. 김민정선수의 팔 동작이 고의적 방해가 아니라 자연스러운 스케이팅 과정이었다는 것을 어떻게 증명할까.

방법이 있다.

쇼트트랙 선수들은 헬멧을 쓴다. 뇌파 센서를 헬멧에 부착하면 된다. 실시간으로 모든 선수의 뇌파를 1,000분의 1초 단위로 측정하고, 무선으로 송신한다. 선수들의 경기력에는 영향을 미치지 않는다. 수집된 뇌파 정보를 분석해서, 순간순간 선수들의 긴장상태, 집중 정도, 운동궤적의 방향설정 의도를 실시간으로 파악할 수 있다. 좀 더 공정한 경기가 가능해진다.

Praamstra 의 논문에 의하면 의도적 행동을 할 때 두정엽(parietal)에서 전두엽(frontal)으로 뇌 활성이 순차적으로 발생한다 (Praamstra et al. 2005). 행동 의도가 어느 방향으로 발생하느냐에 따라 순차적인 뇌 활성의 진행방향이 왼쪽, 오른쪽으로 바뀐다. 뇌활성의 시공간적 정보를 이용해 선수가 몸을 움직이는 방향에 대한 집중도와 의도를 실시간으로 파악할 수 있게 되는 것이다. 움직임의 의도 추적 시스템이다.

가까운 미래 올림픽에서 이런 해설을 듣게 되길 바란다.
네! 김민정선수! 전전두엽이 폭발하겠어요! 엄청난 집중력을 보여주네요!

[References]

Praamstra, P., Boutsen, L., & Humphreys, G. W. (2005). Frontoparietal control of spatial attention and motor intention in human EEG. Journal of neurophysiology, 94(1), 764.