Man with severe paralysis communicates via brain waves in groundbreaking study
Researchers say it's the first time they've decoded full words from the brain activity of someone who can't speak.
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Researchers in California announced Wednesday that they have successfully accessed the brain waves of a man unable to speak due to severe paralysis and transformed his thoughts into sentences.
Why it matters: This is the first known "successful demonstration of direct decoding of full words from the brain activity of someone who is paralyzed and cannot speak," neurosurgeon Edward Chang, senior author on the study, said in a statement from the University of California, San Francisco.
What they did: For the study, known as "BRAVO" (Brain-Computer Interface Restoration of Arm and Voice), researchers worked with a man in his late 30s whose paralysis is due to a brainstem stroke over 15 years ago that left him with limited head, neck, and limb movements. He had been communicating by using a pointer attached to a baseball cap to poke letters on a screen.
- Chang surgically implanted electrodes into the part of the brain that controls speech. The man worked with researchers to create a 50-word vocabulary — words like "water," "family" and "good" — that Chang's team recognized from brain activity using advanced computer algorithms.
- Researchers translated signals intended to control muscles of the vocal system for speaking words, rather than signals to move the arm or hand to enable typing.
- Chang said in his statement that this approach, known as speech neuroprosthesis, tapped into the natural and fluid aspects of speech, promising more rapid and organic communication.