Paralyzed man can again "talk"
U.S. researchers have a completely paralyzed man returned a piece of his linguistic abilities. Thanks to a speech used in the electrode, the patient can produce more than one computer three vowels - as he thinks of the lute.
The man suffers from a Locked-In Syndrome. Normally, people can move up to their eyeballs with this syndrome or eyelids, and communicate so that neither muscle contractions even over their vocal apparatus. With the new system had now been constructed for the first time an interface between the brain and electronics that converts brain signals directly in language, study leader Frank Guenther of Boston University reported at the annual meeting of the American Society for Neuroscience in Washington.
Most brain-computer interface (BCI) detect brain waves through electrodes that are placed outside the skull. They are currently used primarily to enable people after the loss of limbs a mental control of their prostheses and to give a lame way to use a computer cursor. However, at this system, the electrodes move quite easily - with the consequence that they measure the wrong signals and the BCI to be recalibrated.
Because Guenther and his team, however, wanted to permanently absorb the impulses, controls the speech with which the vocal tract, they implanted their patients an electrode directly into the appropriate brain region. The part was so impregnated, that it promoted the growth of nerves and a long and more firmly anchored in the brain.
After surgery, the researchers in the subjects specifically thinking about certain vowels, and drew attention to the signals recorded by the electrode. This was then fed into a computer with a connected synthesizer and associated with the vowel. In this way produces the computer every time the man thinks about an "A" without delay the sound "A".
Meanwhile, the patient thus already three vowel sounds create a high accuracy and a speed equal that of normal speech, reported Guenther. Long-term - estimated in the next five years - is the subject learn to produce consonants, and these combine with the vowels to complete words. Guenther also hopes to record in similar cases in future, thanks to enhanced technology more details of brain activity to be able, for example by the transplanting of several electrodes.
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Paralyzed man can again "talk"
