Brain Computer Interface: How BCI implants can transform thoughts into spoken words

Credit: Undark
Credit: Undark

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. 

Now he is the first person ever to produce whole words via a computer intermediate that decodes his brain’s 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. 

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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.

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