A team of scientists has done something that has never been done before in the field of medicine. A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine details how a brain implant allowed a man who was paralyzed and unable to speak to turn his thoughts into sentences.
The, who was not identified, is in his 30s and suffered a brainstem stroke 15 years ago, leaving him partially paralyzed and unable to speak.
Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, implanted a device in the man's brain that converted his brain waves into sentences which were then displayed on a computer monitor. The device, called a "speech neuroprosthetic," is able to decode the brain waves that control the muscle movements of the lips, jaw, tongue, and larynx. It can then turn those brain waves into text, which is displayed on a computer screen.
"Most of us take for granted how easily we communicate through speech," said Dr. Edward Chang, a neurosurgeon at the University of California, San Francisco. "It's exciting to think we're at the very beginning of a new chapter, a new field" to ease the devastation of patients who have lost that ability.
Currently, the man's vocabulary is limited to about 50 words, but he is able to construct about 1,000 sentences. The scientists said that their research is still in the early phases, and they expect to improve the technology in the future.