What if I told you that this brain device can read your inner thoughts? Sounds scary? Not quite- it could help people with stroke and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis to communicate comfortably. Read till the end to dive deeper.
The interesting story of a French journalist
After a massive brain stem stroke in 1990, Jean Dominique Bauby, a journalist, recorded his entire experience in a book. How could he possibly write when his right side was completely paralyzed? Interestingly, his assistant painstakingly repeated the alphabet, and he responded to each letter by blinking his left eye.
It’s a lot more advanced now..
Well, you don’t have to blink your eyes to write a book anymore. Some devices, for instance, can detect eye movements and slight twitches so you can select the right words from a screen.
Novel brain prosthetic
A recently discovered brain implant can convert neural signals into whole words. Most of these brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) require the wearer to physically attempt to speak, which makes the process tedious. A new development in brain prosthetics allows users to communicate by thinking about what they want to say. Just like its fellow BCIs, they have sensors implanted into the motor cortex, which sends a command to the vocal chords. The motor cortex controls the speech muscles. The user’s brain activity is fed into an AI model to interpret which brain signals correspond to which sound. Using this data, it will predict what word the user is trying to speak.
But, how can the device know what we are thinking in our inner brain?
The motor cortex can also light up when you are imagining. This inspired scientists to develop an inner speech device and publish the results in cell.
The study consisted of 3 patients with ALS and 1 patient with a brain stroke; all of them had brain implants previously. Once they wore the new device, the sentence they were thinking would be displayed on a screen within seconds. There are several speech decoders on the market. What makes the new device stand out? Previously used devices could hardly decipher a few words. The latest device allowed users to choose from a range of 125000 words straight from the dictionary. This is not just impressive but also comfortable for the users.
What about the user’s privacy?
The development of such a device may sound promising, but it is scary at the same time. They have solved this problem, too. To ensure their private thoughts remained private, researchers implemented an interesting code phrase- chitty chitty bang bang. Each time the device hears this phrase, it stops transcribing.
Final thoughts
It is worthwhile to note that implanted BCIs are still in their early stages of research and testing. This novel development in the field of brain prosthetics certainly could make life easier for those with medical conditions like stroke. However, could it be a bane when it comes to privacy? Comment your thoughts.
Stay curious, Happy reading!
Very informative, thank you!