An experimental device that turns thoughts into text has allowed a man who was left paralyzed by an accident to swiftly construct sentences on a computer
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A man who is paralyzed was able to type with 95% accuracy by imagining that he was handwriting letters on a sheet of paper, a team reported in the journal
Nature. Science Photo Library/Pasieka/Getty Images
An experimental device that turns thoughts into text has allowed a man who was left paralyzed by an accident to construct sentences swiftly on a computer screen.
The man was able to type with 95% accuracy just by imagining he was handwriting letters on a sheet of paper, a team reported Wednesday in the journal
Paralysed man uses mindwriting brain computer to compose sentences msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Image Credit: BrainGate
A man paralyzed from the neck down used an implanted sensor that processed his brain signals to create text, achieving a typing speed rivaling that of his able-bodied peers.
The intracortical brain-computer interface (BCI) decoded his attempted handwriting movements from neural activity and translated them to text in real time at a rate of 90 characters per minute, more than double the previous record for typing with a BCI, reported Francis Willett, PhD, of Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Stanford University, and co-authors in
.
The 65-year-old man, referred to as T5 in the paper, had a spinal cord injury in 2007 that immobilized his limbs. Nine years later, as part of the BrainGate2 clinical trial, researchers placed two BCI chips, each the size of baby aspirin, in the part of his motor cortex that governs hand movement.