Title: Breakthrough Brain Implant Allows Paralyzed Patients to Communicate through a Computer
In a ground-breaking achievement, two women who had lost their ability to speak due to paralysis have successfully regained their communication abilities with the help of brain implants. One woman suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), while the other had experienced a stroke in her brain stem.
These brain implants work by decoding the neural activity associated with facial movements involved in talking, thus enabling communication through a computer. The incredible breakthrough was able to achieve communication rates of 62 and 78 words per minute for the two women, respectively. This is several times faster than the previous record.
Researchers from Stanford University and UC San Francisco have published two papers detailing these successful cases in the prestigious journal Nature, offering hope for paralyzed individuals to restore real-time speech through the use of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology.
BCIs function by collecting and analyzing brain signals, which are then translated into commands for external devices. In the past, BCIs allowed paralyzed individuals to control robotic arms, play video games, and even send emails using only their thoughts.
To develop their BCI system, the Stanford team utilized the Utah array, a small sensor equipped with 64 needle-like bristles. Volunteer Pat Bennett, an ALS patient, received four of these sensors implanted in her cerebral cortex. Over the course of four months, Bennett worked with the software to train it to recognize neural signals associated with the movements of her lips, jaw, and tongue.
The software, having learned to predict and string together words, successfully constructed sentences displayed on a computer screen. With the brain implant device, Bennett achieved an average communication rate of 62 words per minute.
It is important to note that the BCI system had a 23.8 percent error rate on a vocabulary of 125,000 words. Nevertheless, this achievement surpasses the previous record set in 2021 by the same Stanford team, which was a mere 18 words per minute.
The breakthrough holds immense promise for the future of communication accessibility for paralyzed individuals. With further development and improvements, this technology could provide a lifeline for those who have lost their ability to speak due to paralysis, greatly enhancing their quality of life.
“Infuriatingly humble tv expert. Friendly student. Travel fanatic. Bacon fan. Unable to type with boxing gloves on.”