“By implanting an electrode into the brain of a person with locked-in syndrome, scientists have demonstrated how to wirelessly transmit neural signals to a speech synthesizer. The “thought-to-speech” process takes about 50 milliseconds – the same amount of time for a non-paralyzed, neurologically intact person to speak their thoughts. The study marks the first successful demonstration of a permanently installed, wireless implant for real-time control of an external device.
“The results of our study show that a brain-machine interface (BMI) user can control sound output directly, rather than having to use a (relatively slow) typing process,” Guenther told PhysOrg.com.
In their study, the researchers tested the technology on a 26-year-old male who had a brain stem stroke at age 16. The brain stem stroke caused a lesion between the volunteer’s motor neurons that carry out actions and the rest of the brain; while his consciousness and cognitive abilities are intact, he is paralyzed except for slow vertical movement of the eyes. The rare condition is called locked-in syndrome.
Five years ago, when the volunteer was 21 years old, the scientists implanted an electrode near the boundary between the speech-related premotor and primary motor cortex (specifically, the left ventral premotor cortex). Neurites began growing into the electrode and, in three or four months, the neurites produced signaling patterns on the electrode wires that have been maintained indefinitely. Three years after implantation, the researchers began testing the brain-machine interface for real-time synthetic speech production.”
Read more at PhysOrg
Absolutely amazing. I wonder how accurate it is?
I was overjoyed to read this – so I went to the full article – disgusting. The “subject” that they are talking about has the first. They have revised improved and boosted the newer device. Which I read in excitement will instead of only being able to interpret vowel sounds, be able to interpret consonant sounds as well which should enable real time convo . Oh how wonderful for that chap to be able to finally communicate. ER NOPE – cause their new bit of kit is for a new subject. WTF – surely they should give that kit to the guy thats volunteered (though god knows how he did), I think its disgusting that they have a new subject for the new bit of kit. Am I the only one who thinks this is too science and virtually no patient dignity?
Honda used the BMI to communicate to the Asimo robot using only human thought. It’s really quite intruiging how far technology is advancing in this area
pay no attention to that man behind the curtain…
I wonder how they speak to this man and how he gave his permission for this experimental study. Can he read, can he see, can he hear, can he understand stuff. It says he is conscious and having an awake cognitive system. All discovered by the parallel movement of the eyes? Yes and no answers are not very informative. Did they ask the right questions. Didn’t they feed him stuff to get the proper answer? Lots of tests (psychological) where yes/no answers are required are way too shallow and simple as well, and totally not giving usefull results. People are not that simple. Never. No-one.
Just wonderd .. must be hard on the guy, knowing that he might not benefit from it. Wouldn’t he want to die. Let’s hope those scientists dont misuse his brain ignoring the guy himself completely. Doesn’t that remind you of someone in the past …
@Storm…i get your point and find it kind of ”on the edge” also but, if you suffer from this syndrome…i can so imagine you want to ‘get out’ no matter what, better sooner then later and are happy that people are actually working on it ….Tricky…