For people who struggle with movement and speaking, even attempting to talk requires immense effort. However, a new study has shown that Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)<\/b> technology can recognize words that a person only pronounces in their mind<\/b>.<\/p>\n
BCI technology reads signals in the brain, for example, when a person attempts to control a prosthesis or speak. During this process, the brain signals are converted into text<\/b>. Thanks to this technology, communication becomes much faster and simpler<\/b> because no physical exertion is required. This means that people with paralysis will have a much more comfortable means of communication.<\/p>\n
The Stanford Study<\/b><\/p>\n
In the study, led by a team of scientists from Stanford University<\/b>, microelectrodes were implanted into the motor cortex<\/b> of four patients who had paralysis due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)<\/b> and a brainstem stroke<\/b>.<\/p>\n
The implant recorded brain activity when the patients were attempting to speak or only pronouncing words in their mind (inner speech)<\/b>. Although “inner speech” produced weaker signals<\/b> than attempting to speak, similar regions of the brain were activated<\/b> during both processes.<\/p>\n
This allowed the Artificial Intelligence (AI)<\/b> to decipher sentences from a vocabulary of up to 125,000 words<\/b>. The system even managed to capture spontaneous mental activities, such as counting numbers while performing a visual task.<\/p>\n
The researchers also built a password function<\/b> into the device for confidentiality. For example, mentally envisioning the phrase, “chitty chitty bang bang,”<\/b> activated the decoding with 98% accuracy<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Although fully and flawlessly deciphering “inner speech” is not yet possible, researchers believe that improving the technical equipment and algorithms will make the technology useful for those who cannot speak.<\/p>\n