Ideas, Inventions And Innovations
Mindwriting: Device Enables Paralyzed People to Text by Thought
Artificial intelligence, interpreting data from a device placed at the brain’s surface, enables people who are paralyzed or have severely impaired limb movement to communicate by text. Call it “mindwriting.”
The combination of mental effort and state-of-the-art technology have allowed a man with immobilized limbs to communicate by text at speeds rivaling those achieved by his able-bodied peers texting on a smartphone.
Stanford University investigators have coupled artificial-intelligence software with a device, called a brain-computer interface, implanted in the brain of a man with full-body paralysis. The software was able to decode information from the BCI to quickly convert the man’s thoughts about handwriting into text on a computer screen.
Call it mindwriting.
The combination of mental effort and state-of-the-art technology have allowed a man with immobilized limbs to communicate by text at speeds rivaling those achieved by his able-bodied peers texting on a smartphone.
Stanford University investigators have coupled artificial-intelligence software with a device, called a brain-computer interface, implanted in the brain of a man with full-body paralysis. The software was able to decode information from the BCI to quickly convert the man s thoughts about handwriting into text on a computer screen.
The man was able to write using this approach more than twice as quickly as he could using a previous method developed by the Stanford researchers, who reported those findings in 2017 in the journal eLife.
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IMAGE: A participant in the BrainGate clinical trial uses wireless transmitters that replace the cables normally used to transmit signals from sensors inside the brain. view more
Credit: Braingate.ord
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University and Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center] Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are an emerging assistive technology, enabling people with paralysis to type on computer screens or manipulate robotic prostheses just by thinking about moving their own bodies. For years, investigational BCIs used in clinical trials have required cables to connect the sensing array in the brain to computers that decode the signals and use them to drive external devices.
A common brain disorder called Chiari 1 malformation can result from variations in two genes involved in brain development, research finds.
The study also reveals that children with unusually large heads are four times more likely to be diagnosed with Chiari 1 malformation than their peers with normal head circumference.
The condition occurs when the lowest parts of the brain are found below the base of the skull.
About one in 100 children has Chiari 1 malformation, but most of the time such children grow up normally and no one suspects a problem. But in about one in 10 of those children, the condition causes headaches, neck pain, hearing, vision and balance disturbances, or other neurological symptoms.