Latest news with #BrainGate2
Boston Globe
7 hours ago
- Health
- Boston Globe
For some patients, the ‘inner voice' may soon be audible
Christian Herff, a neuroscientist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who was not involved in the research, said the result went beyond the merely technological and shed light on the mystery of language. 'It's a fantastic advance,' Herff said. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The new study is the latest result in a long-running clinical trial, called BrainGate2, that has already seen some remarkable successes. One participant, Casey Harrell, now uses his brain-machine interface to hold conversations with his family and friends. Advertisement In 2023, after ALS had made his voice unintelligible, Harrell agreed to have electrodes implanted in his brain. Surgeons placed four arrays of tiny needles on the left side, in a patch of tissue called the motor cortex. The region becomes active when the brain creates commands for muscles to produce speech. A computer recorded the electrical activity from the implants as Harrell attempted to say different words. Over time, with the help of artificial intelligence, the computer accurately predicted almost 6,000 words, with an accuracy of 97.5 percent. It could then synthesize those words using Harrell's voice, based on recordings made before he developed ALS. Advertisement But successes like this one raised a troubling question: Could a computer accidentally record more than patients wanted to say? Could it eavesdrop on their inner voice? 'We wanted to investigate if there was a risk of the system decoding words that weren't meant to be said aloud,' said Erin Kunz, a neuroscientist at Stanford University and an author of the new study. She and her colleagues also wondered if patients might actually prefer using inner speech. They noticed that Harrell and other participants became fatigued when they tried to speak; could simply imagining a sentence be easier for them and allow the system to work faster? 'If we could decode that, then that could bypass the physical effort,' Kunz said. 'It would be less tiring, so they could use the system for longer.' But it wasn't clear if the researchers could decode inner speech. Scientists don't even agree on what 'inner speech' is. Some researchers have indeed argued that language is essential for thought. But others, pointing to recent studies, maintain that much of our thinking does not involve language at all and that people who hear an inner voice are just perceiving a kind of sporadic commentary in their heads. 'Many people have no idea what you're talking about when you say you have an inner voice,' said Evelina Fedorenko, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'They're like, 'You know, maybe you should go see a doctor if you're hearing words in your head.'' Fedorenko said she has an inner voice, while her husband does not. Advertisement Kunz and her colleagues decided to investigate the mystery for themselves. The scientists gave participants seven different words, including 'kite' and 'day,' then compared the brain signals when participants attempted to say the words and when they only imagined saying them. As it turned out, imagining a word produced a pattern of activity similar to that of trying to say it, but the signal was weaker. The computer did a pretty good job of predicting which of the seven words the participants were thinking. For Harrell, it didn't do much better than a random guess would have, but for another participant, it picked the right word more than 70 percent of the time. The researchers put the computer through more training, this time specifically on inner speech. Its performance improved significantly, including on Harrell. Now, when the participants imagined saying entire sentences, such as 'I don't know how long you've been here,' the computer could accurately decode most or all of the words. Herff, who has done studies on inner speech, was surprised that the experiment succeeded. Before, he would have said that inner speech is fundamentally different from the motor cortex signals that produce actual speech. 'But in this study, they show that, for some people, it really isn't that different,' he said. Kunz emphasized that the computer's current performance involving inner speech would not be good enough to let people hold conversations. 'The results are an initial proof of concept more than anything,' she said. But she is optimistic that decoding inner speech could become the new standard for brain-computer interfaces. In more recent trials, the results of which have yet to be published, she and her colleagues have improved the computer's accuracy and speed. 'We haven't hit the ceiling yet,' she said. Advertisement As for mental privacy, Kunz and her colleagues found some reason for concern: On occasion, the researchers were able to detect words that the participants weren't imagining out loud. Kunz and her colleagues explored ways to prevent the computer from eavesdropping on private thoughts. They came up with two possible solutions. One would be to only decode attempted speech, while blocking inner speech. The new study suggests this strategy could work. Even though the two kinds of thought are similar, they are different enough that a computer can learn to tell them apart. In one trial, the participants mixed sentences in their minds of both attempted and imagined speech. The computer was able to ignore the imagined speech. For people who would prefer to communicate with inner speech, Kunz and her colleagues came up with a second strategy: an inner password to turn the decoding on and off. The password would have to be a long, unusual phrase, they decided, so they chose 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,' the name of a 1964 novel by Ian Fleming as well as a 1968 movie starring Dick van Dyke. One of the participants, a 68-year-old woman with ALS, imagined saying 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' along with an assortment of other words. The computer eventually learned to recognize the password with 98.75 percent accuracy — and decoded her inner speech only after detecting the password. 'This study represents a step in the right direction, ethically speaking,' said Cohen Marcus Lionel Brown, a bioethicist at the University of Wollongong in Australia. 'If implemented faithfully, it would give patients even greater power to decide what information they share and when.' Advertisement This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
UC Davis develops brain computer, helps man with ASL speak in real time
( — Possible new hope has flourished for those who have lost the ability to speak after researchers at the University of California, Davis developed an investigational brain-computer interface that helps restore the ability to hold real-time conversations. Video Above: Illness took away her voice. AI created a replica she carries in her phone (May 2024) The new technology is able to translate the brain activity of the person attempting to speak into a voice, according to researchers in a new study published in the scientific journal Nature. The study participant, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, was able to speak to his family, change his intonation and even 'sing' simple melodies. UC Davis Health said that the system's digital vocal tract has no detectable delays. 'Translating neural activity into text, which is how our previous speech brain-computer interface works, is akin to text messaging. It's a big improvement compared to standard assistive technologies, but it still leads to delayed conversation. By comparison, this new real-time voice synthesis is more like a voice call,' said Sergey Stavisky, senior author of the paper and an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Neurological Surgery. Stavisky went on to say that with the use of instantaneous voice synthesis, neuroprosthesis users will be able to be more interactive and included in conversations. The clinical trial at UC Davis, BrainGate2, used an investigational brain-computer interface that consists of surgically implanting four microelectrode arrays into the area of the brain that produces speech. The firing pattern of hundreds of neurons was measured through electrodes, followed by the alignment of the patterns with the attempted speech sound the participant was producing. The activity of neurons in the brain is recorded and then sent to a computer that interprets the signals to reconstruct voice, researchers said. 'The main barrier to synthesizing voice in real-time was not knowing exactly when and how the person with speech loss is trying to speak,' said Maitreyee Wairagkar, first author of the study and project scientist in the Neuroprosthetics Lab at UC Davis. 'Our algorithms map neural activity to intended sounds at each moment of time. This makes it possible to synthesize nuances in speech and give the participant control over the cadence of his BCI-voice.' The neural signals of the participant were translated into audible speech in one-fortieth of a second, according to the study. 'This short delay is similar to the delay a person experiences when they speak and hear the sound of their own voice,' said officials. The participant was also able to say words unknown to the system, along with making interjections. He was able to modulate the intonation of his generated computer voice to ask a question or emphasize specific words in a sentence. 60% of the BCI-synthesized words were understandable to listeners, while only 4% were understandable when not using BCI, the study said. Events, discounted tattoos, piercings this Friday the 13th 'Our voice is part of what makes us who we are. Losing the ability to speak is devastating for people living with neurological conditions,' said David Brandman, co-director of the UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab and the neurosurgeon who performed the participant's implant. 'The results of this research provide hope for people who want to talk but can't. We showed how a paralyzed man was empowered to speak with a synthesized version of his voice. This kind of technology could be transformative for people living with paralysis.' Researchers said that brain-to-voice neuroprostheses are still in the early phase, despite promising findings. They said that a limitation is that the research was done on only one participant with ALS. The goal would be to replicate the results with more participants who have speech loss from other causes. More information on the BrainGate2 trial can be found on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
India Today
12-06-2025
- Health
- India Today
First-of-its-kind brain computer helps man with ALS speak in real-time
In what could be one of the bioggest breakthrough in medical science and technology a newly developed investigational brain-computer interface could restore voice of people who have lost the team from University of California, Davis succesfully demonstrated this new technology, which can instantaneously translate brain activity into voice as a person tries to speak. The technology promises to create an artificial vocal details, published in journal Nature, highlight how the study participant, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), spoke through a computer with his family in real time. The technology changed his intonation and 'sang' simple melodies. 'Translating neural activity into text, which is how our previous speech brain-computer interface works, is akin to text messaging. It's a big improvement compared to standard assistive technologies, but it still leads to delayed conversation. By comparison, this new real-time voice synthesis is more like a voice call,' said Sergey Stavisky, senior author of the investigational brain-computer interface (BCI) was used during the BrainGate2 clinical trial at UC Davis Health. It consists of four microelectrode arrays surgically implanted into the region of the brain responsible for producing speech. The researchers collected data while the participant was asked to try to speak sentences shown to him on a computer screen. (Photo: UCD) advertisement'The main barrier to synthesizing voice in real-time was not knowing exactly when and how the person with speech loss is trying to speak. Our algorithms map neural activity to intended sounds at each moment of time. This makes it possible to synthesize nuances in speech and give the participant control over the cadence of his BCI-voice,' Maitreyee Wairagkar, first author of the study system translated the participant's neural signals into audible speech played through a speaker very quickly — one-fortieth of a attributed the short delay to the same delay as a person experiences when they speak and hear the sound of their own technology also allowed the participant to say new words (words not already known to the system) and to make interjections. He was able to modulate the intonation of his generated computer voice to ask a question or emphasize specific words in a process of instantaneously translating brain activity into synthesized speech is helped by advanced artificial intelligence researchers note that "although the findings are promising, brain-to-voice neuroprostheses remain in an early phase. A key limitation is that the research was performed with a single participant with ALS. It will be crucial to replicate these results with more participants."
