The Brain-Computer Interfaces That Could Give Locked-In Patients a Voice | Innovation

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By recording activity of specific neurons in the brain, researchers aim to pick up signals of intended speech.
Knowable Magazine

In Alexandre Dumas’s classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo, a character named Monsieur Noirtier de Villefort suffers a terrible stroke that leaves him paralyzed. Though he remains awake and aware, he is no longer able to move or speak, relying on his granddaughter Valentine to recite the alphabet and flip through a dictionary to find the letters and words he requires. With this rudimentary form of communication, the determined old man manages to save Valentine from being poisoned by her stepmother and thwart his son’s attempts to marry her off against her will.

Dumas’s portrayal of this catastrophic condition—where, as he puts it, “the soul is trapped in a body that no longer obeys its commands”—is one of the earliest descriptions of locked-in syndrome. This form of profound paralysis occurs when the brain stem is damaged, usually because of a stroke but also as the result of tumors, traumatic brain injury, snakebite, substance abuse, infection or neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

The Count of Monte-Cristo

In The Count of Monte-Cristo, Monsieur Noirtier de Villefort cannot move or speak but communicates with his granddaughter through words and letters in a book.

Project Gutenberg

The condition is thought to be rare, though just how rare is hard to say. Many locked-in patients can communicate through purposeful eye movements and blinking, but others can become completely immobile, losing their ability even to move their eyeballs or eyelids, rendering the command “blink twice if you understand me” moot. As a result, patients can spend an average of 79 days imprisoned in a motionless body, conscious but unable to communicate, before they are properly diagnosed.

The advent of brain-machine interfaces has fostered hopes of restoring communication to people in this locked-in state, enabling them to reconnect with the outside world. These technologies typically use an implanted device to record the brain waves associated with speech and then use computer algorithms to translate the intended messages. The most exciting advances require no blinking, eye tracking or attempted vocalizations, but instead capture and convey the letters or words a person says silently in their head.

“I feel like this technology really has the potential to help the people who have lost the most, people who are really locked down and cannot communicate at all anymore,” says Sarah Wandelt, a graduate student in computation and neural systems at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Recent studies by Wandelt and others have provided the first evidence that brain-machine interfaces can decode internal speech. These approaches, while promising, are often invasive, laborious and expensive, and experts agree they will require considerably more development before they can give locked-in patients a voice.

Engaging the brain—but where?

The first step of building a brain-machine interface is deciding which part of the brain to tap. Back when Dumas was young, many believed the contours of a

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Mandating Good Interfaces On Client Electronics Gadgets

CEO of AIoT chip corporation XMOS, Mark Lippett is a engineering chief with 25 years’ experience in startup, scale-up and blue-chip providers.

Accessibility—A Increasing Concern

June 2022 observed the arrival of the deadline established by the European Accessibility Act (EAA) for EU member states to compose their have electronic accessibility procedures into regulation. This is an important worldwide milestone for electronic accessibility and delivers a very clear concept about how seriously the problem of inclusivity requires to be taken by people production and offering digital goods close to the planet.

What was once a little something thought of “nice to have” is now staying prepared into legislation, and this is a large deal—not only is this now secured by regulation, but it also has a direct affect on brand name name and picture. Nobody wants to be the brand caught out for not adhering to the policies when it arrives to any exercise, primarily when it will come to social duty and inclusivity.

For those creating accessibility technologies, this legislative action adds an excess layer of urgency to their do the job. Substitutes are no longer an choice as they simply just won’t go authorized muster. This directive establishes a need for good quality, regulation and consistency, which demands additional from all associated in the design course of action.

Voice, Graphic And What’s Up coming

Much-discipline voice technological innovation (capable of functioning across a noisy space) is one particular case in point among the different methods of delivering accessibility—its aid to those with sight troubles or mobility constraints is invaluable—building this sort of voice abilities into client electronics will increase the quality of practical experience throughout the most inclusive cross-area of society.

In the potential, of course, far-industry voice will not be the only process by which we can utilize accessibility to equipment this sort of as telephones, TVs and smart house assistants. Emerging lower frame-rate imaging technologies is enabling devices to identify human varieties entering a home, their area, gestures and other attributes—features that will lead to accessibility, convenience and strength use.

Transferring away from the more standard fields of visible and aural stimuli, haptic engineering provides another dimension of comments for these with impairments to their sight or hearing. Tactile sensors in a device can answer to tension exerted by the person, featuring “physical” comments as a result of resistance, vibration, or a collection of faucets or buzzes, as an alternate to visual signage or spoken instructions.

As sensor and on-gadget processing technology turn into a lot more advanced, attributes such as these will grow to be extra quickly obtainable on a mass scale, hence growing the accessibility of wise things for all. All of this, nonetheless, does appear at a price tag, the two in the literal feeling and in conditions of engagement—as people have to make a leap of religion to invest in discovering new technological innovation and its abilities.

As wellness and household trend professional Jamie Gold recently wrote, existing adoption of

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Countrywide Tech Working day 2022: Curing paralysis, mind laptop interfaces and the Metaverse

For Jan. 6’s Nationwide Tech Working day, FOX43 is having a search back again at a number of science and technologies announcements manufactured in 2021.

Jan. 6 is National Tech Working day!

Here are some key bulletins in technological innovation and science from the past 365 days.

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Northwestern University: Injectable Remedy to Reverse Paralysis

In Nov. 2021, scientists at Northwestern University declared that they made an injectable remedy that can “reverse paralysis and fix tissue just after serious spinal twine accidents.”

In the new analyze, researchers injected “dancing molecules” that send “bioactive alerts to set off cells to fix and regenerate.”

The report claims four months soon after a single injection of the treatment method, paralyzed mice regained the potential to walk. 

Within just 12 months, the report says the components in the treatment biodegrade into nutrients for the cells, absolutely disappearing and without apparent aspect outcomes

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Meta: The introduction of the Metaverse

Meta, the organization as soon as identified as Fb, announced its new name on Oct. 28, 2021. 

The improve arrives as Meta shifts its aim from social media to creating a “Metaverse.”

The firm’s “Quest 2” digital reality headset, which was unveiled in late 2020, sold additional than 10 million models right before the 2021 holiday getaway time.

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Neuralink: Mind Personal computer Interface

Elon Musk’s enterprise “Neuralink” launched a video and weblog publish demonstrating a Macaque monkey handle a paddle from the video video game “Pong” with just its intellect.

In accordance to Neuralink, the monkey, named Pager, has a device implanted in its mind with 1,024 electrodes that can history and transmit mind action to a laptop.

Neuralink suggests its first purpose is to, “give men and women with paralysis their electronic freedom back again: to converse far more very easily by using text, to abide by their curiosity on the world-wide-web, to specific their creative imagination through pictures and art, and, certainly, to engage in online video online games.”

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Pfizer and Merck: COVID-19 anti-viral pills

In late 2021, with COVID-19 continuing to spread across the world, the Fda licensed Merck and Pfizer’s anti-viral products to treat the disease.

While scientific tests have revealed Pfizer’s anti-viral capsule to be additional helpful than Merck’s, decreasing hospitalization or death by 89% among people today offered the drug in 3 times of 1st showing signs, both must support choose stress off of battling health and fitness techniques.

Obtain the FOX43 app here. 

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