The brain-computer interface allowed the paralyzed American to pronounce sounds

A completely paralyzed American has gained the ability to make several sounds with the help of electrodes implanted in the brain, which are connected to a sound synthesizer. The developers of the technique hope that with the help of such technology, paralyzed people will be able to pronounce whole phrases in the future.

A research team from Boston University in Massachusetts tested their development on a completely paralyzed patient Erik Ramsey, who is fully conscious at the same time. The paralysis was the result of a brain stem hemorrhage received nine years ago as a result of a car accident.

At the first stage of the work, scientists using functional magnetic resonance imaging found out that the patient's brain is able to produce the same speech signals as the brain of a healthy person.

The researchers then implanted a permanent electrode developed by Philip Kennedy from Neural Signals in Georgia into the corresponding area of the brain. This electrode has been treated with neurotrophic factors that stimulate the growth of nerve cells, which fix it in place and produce more powerful signals. After implantation, the electrode was connected to a sound synthesizer through a computer converter. Thanks to this device, the patient was able to clearly pronounce three vowel sounds (you can hear one of them on this video - VM).

According to the head of the work, Frank Guenther, the next task was to improve the computer interface and train the patient to work with it in such a way that in five years to achieve the utterance of individual words. Further work on the methodology aims to give patients the opportunity to pronounce whole phrases.

Copper news based on Nature: Brain implant allows mute man to speak 

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25.11.2008