Brain Implant Lets Paralyzed Man Spell His Thoughts

A fully paralyzed patient was able to communicate using a brain implant, according to a new study published by researchers Ujwal Chaudhary and Niels Birbaumer in Nature Communications. The patient in question was diagnosed in August 2015 with a fast-progressing type of ALS. By the end of 2015, he had lost the ability to talk and walk. A year later, he was put on a ventilator as he was unable to move his muscles to breathe.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. This progressive nervous system disease causes its patients to lose muscle control.

The research team started to work with him when he could still move his eyes. He told the team he wanted an invasive implant to try to maintain communication with his family, including his young son. His wife and sister provided written consent for the surgery.

Then, they inserted two square electrode arrays into a part of the brain that controls movement. When they asked the man to try to move his hands, feet, head, and eyes, the neural signals weren’t consistent enough to answer yes-or-no questions.

After nearly 3 months of unsuccessful efforts, the team tried neurofeedback, in which a person attempts to modify their brain signals while getting a real-time measure of whether they are succeeding.

Not much later, the patient was able to construct words and full sentences with help from mental impulses.

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Still, the study shows it’s possible to maintain communication with a person as they become locked in by adapting an interface to their abilities.

But hundreds of hours went into designing, testing, and maintaining the personalized system, they are nowhere near getting this into an assistive technology state that could be purchased by a family.

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Source-Medindia