More than 15 years ago, a man who was only 20 years old had a massive stroke when a major artery supplying his brain stem burst. The incident left him unable to control his limbs or any muscles related to speech.ย
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Now he is the first person ever to produce whole words via a computer intermediate that decodes his brainโs messages. A processor connected to an array of electrodes implanted in his brain receives the messages and translates them into words displayed on a screen. As researchers reported on July 14 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the man, who is now in his late 30s, used this brain-computer interface, or BCI, to produce whole words outside of his brain for the first time since his stroke.ย
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Earlier generations of neuroprostheses have relied on communications from the brain to the limb or hand muscles to activate letters on a keyboard…. Now researchers have decoded the origin of brain signals controlling speech and created the new neuroprosthesis that facilitates the production of whole words, yielding a faster word-per-minute rate.
