2023-09-07 15:47:00
Paralyzed People May Soon Regain Their Ability to Speak Thanks to Breakthrough Research
Author: Felicitas Erzinger
For years, researchers have been tirelessly working on finding ways to help paralyzed individuals speak again. Now, two American research groups have made significant advancements in this area, bringing hope to those who have lost their ability to communicate.
One such individual is Ann, a 47-year-old woman who has been paralyzed and unable to speak since suffering a stroke. Previously, she relied on special glasses to select individual letters on a screen and painstakingly piece together words in order to communicate with her husband. However, this method was both exhausting and time-consuming.
But now, thanks to a brain-computer interface known as a brain-computer interface, Ann has a newfound ability to communicate with her thoughts. A thin film, implanted by neurosurgeon Edward Chang from the University of California in San Francisco, contains around 250 electrodes that record the electrical brain signals generated when Ann wants to express something.
“It was only around five or six years ago that we began to really understand the electrical patterns that lead to the movements of the lips, jaw, and tongue, and ultimately the specific sounds of the individual consonants and vowels in words produce,” explains Chang.
Using advanced algorithms, researchers have successfully deciphered these signals for individual speech sounds and assembled them into coherent words and sentences. To minimize errors, the sentences are also checked against a language model, which determines their sense and suggests alternatives if necessary.
This breakthrough research has resulted in a landmark achievement of 78 words per minute, a rate that is nearly half as fast as that of a healthy individual. Another research group achieved similar results with a different paralyzed patient around the same time. Not only are these individuals speaking faster, but their vocabulary has also significantly expanded compared to previous methods.
However, despite these remarkable advancements, there are still several challenges that need to be addressed before this technology can be implemented in everyday life. Currently, the error rate stands at three out of four translated words, which is still not sufficient. Additionally, the cables that need to be attached to the patient’s head pose practical and safety concerns, as infections can occur through the opening in the skull. The long-term reliability of the brain electrodes and the complexity of the system also need to be addressed before it can be used at home.
While there is still a long way to go, the researchers involved in these studies are determined to overcome these hurdles and transform their laboratory prototypes into medical devices that can restore speech to paralyzed individuals. Roger Gassert, a professor of rehabilitation technology at ETH Zurich, acknowledges the impressive results but emphasizes that there is still work to be done before this technology can be widely accessible.
Ultimately, these breakthroughs offer hope for paralyzed individuals who dream of regaining their ability to speak. With further advancements and refinements, this research could revolutionize the lives of many who have been deprived of this fundamental means of communication.]
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