Posted on 07/16/2021 10:43:27 AM PDT by Red Badger
(UC San Francisco) ===========================================================================
In a world first, US researchers have developed a neuroprosthetic device that successfully translated the brain waves of a paralyzed man into complete sentences, according to a scientific paper published Thursday.
"This is an important technological milestone for a person who cannot communicate naturally," said David Moses, a postdoctoral engineer at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and one of the lead authors of the study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"It demonstrates the potential for this approach to give a voice to people with severe paralysis and speech loss."
The breakthrough involved a 36-year-old man who had a stroke when he was 20 that left him with anarthria - the inability to speak intelligibly, though his cognitive function had remained intact.
Every year, thousands of people lose the ability to talk due to strokes, accidents or disease.
Past research in this area has focused on reading brain waves via electrodes to develop mobility prosthetics that allow users to spell out letters.
The new approach was intended to enable more rapid and organic communication.
VIDEO AT LINK......................
UCSF researchers had previously placed electrode arrays on patients with normal speech who were undergoing brain surgery, to decode the signals that control the vocal tract in order to express vowels and consonants, and were able to analyze the patterns to predict words.
But the concept hadn't been tried out on a paralyzed patient to prove it could offer clinical benefit.
Feat of neuroengineering The team decided to launch a new study called Brain-Computer Interface Restoration of Arm and Voice, and the first participant asked to be referred to as BRAVO1.
Since suffering a devastating brainstem stroke, BRAVO1 has had extremely limited head, neck, and limb movements, and communicates by using a pointer attached to a baseball cap to poke letters on a screen.
The researchers worked with BRAVO1 to develop a 50-word vocabulary with words essential to his daily life like "water," "family," and "good," then surgically implanted a high-density electrode over his speech motor cortex.
Over the next several months, the team recorded his neural activity as he attempted to say the 50 words, and used artificial intelligence to distinguish subtle patterns in the data and tie them to words.
To test it had worked, they presented him with sentences constructed from the vocabulary set, and recorded the results on a screen.
They then prompted him with questions like "How are you today?" and "Would you like some water?" which he was able to answer with responses like, "I am very good," and "No, I am not thirsty."
The system decoded up to 18 words per minute with a median accuracy of 75 percent. An "auto-correct" function, similar to that used in phones, contributed to its success.
"To our knowledge, this is the first successful demonstration of direct decoding of full words from the brain activity of someone who is paralyzed and cannot speak," said BRAVO1's neurosurgeon Edward Chang, a co-author.
An accompanying editorial in the journal hailed the development as "a feat of neuroengineering," and suggested advancements in technology such as smaller surface electrodes might help improve accuracy even further.
It must be horrible to have a disease that robs you of the ability to communicate but leaves your brain fully functioning.
That being said, this must cost a fortune. I don’t know how many people who need it will be able to pay for it.
Wow! That’s awesome! It’s a very big deal to those so afflicted. They loose EVERYTHING when those types of strokes happen. They loose their ability to do anything for themselves and often end up in nursing homes because the care °they need is so intensive. A man can’t even make love to his wife, or even say I love you. I have a particular individual in mind as I write this. We used to have to take him to an Ivy League medical center periodically for medical care. He was only in his 30’s and had benn down for 10 years at the time. The one thing he was spared was the ability to laugh so we had him belly laughing for the hour it took to make the trip.
I’m so glad that efforts are progressing to help these individuals. They dearly need it.
These "Far Side" posts provide a simple cartoon explanation for why Abraham flew out the door when God showed him a certain land.
The Far Side is the place where people can discover, for another example, the real reason that dinosaurs went extinct!
Who's with me? :)
Real prophets are often the ones who have no idea, the inspiration just happens:
Gotta laugh!
Who could just sit around without opening the book? :)
🤣
“This is really cool if it’s true.”
Yes and no. Now they can control our speech, if true they’ll be able to control our thoughts.
1984 is here. Everything is a double edged sword.
“Donning his new canine decoder, Professor Schwartzman becomes the first human being on Earth to hear what barking dogs are actually saying.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!””
Hey, are you Gary Larson?
“Everything is a double edged sword.”
That requires a positive side. What is the positive side?
Secrets of the universe revealed!
There were a couple of threads around here recently pertaining to God and time.
God could really have some fun with the Far Side.
If my suspicions are correct, He’s a big fan.
What about the one where’s He’s about to push the “smite” button?
Oy vey I hope He didn’t get any ideas. ;)
If concepts/ideas could be shared,
= = =
Not so sure how that would work.
My mind is generally busy, not sure there is room to share an idea.
Would it get combined with ideas I have, or kept separate and identified as someone else’s idea?
What if that other concept is exactly opposite my current concept?
Now, if the other head was empty, and could be ‘infused’,
Would that be like Trump living in the Dems’ heads?
Is that a compliment? I’ll take it! :)
Maybe this is wrongthink, but as soon as I opened the thread and saw the photo of that interactive screen, it looked to me like the man had just received a COVID shot.
“That requires a positive side. What is the positive side?”
I’m not sure if your comment is regarding double edged swords or the positive side of this new technology.
“Literally, a double-edged sword is a sword that has two sharpened edges. Figuratively, double-edged sword refers to something that has both good and bad consequences.
When you’re wielding a double-edged sword, you have to be careful that you don’t cut yourself when you’re trying to swing it at an opponent. Such a sword can be helpful (in striking your opponent) and harmful (if you strike yourself).
If something is a double-edged sword, it will help you or be good for you but will also most likely hurt you or have a harmful cost.
Example: My new car is a double-edged sword, getting me to work but costing me a lot of money in gas and insurance.”
https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/double-edged-sword/
In the case of the article in question, the positive side is that someone unable to talk and is paralyzed could still express himself.
I was thinking there had to be a plus side to the sword.
As you note:
“In the case of the article in question, the positive side is that someone unable to talk and is paralyzed could still express himself.”
That is true. However, overall, this seems a relatively small benefit compared to all the potentially bad sides where government could take it.
Speak your mind.
In the future, the question of whether she looks fat will be settled wirelessly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.