Say what you think: a brain implant translates thought into speech – Tech News



[ad_1]

People who are unable to communicate because of an injury or brain injury may one day be able to talk again, after the April 25 scientists unveiled a revolutionary implant that decodes the words directly from a person's thoughts.

Many neurological conditions can interfere with a patient's ability to articulate, and many rely on communication devices that use head or eye movements to spell words letter by letter.

Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco said they successfully reconstituted "synthetic" speech using an implant to scan volunteers' cerebral signals as they read several hundred sentences out loud.

They point out that the technology is in its infancy, but it nevertheless has the potential to transpose the thoughts of silent patients in real time.

Instead of trying to translate electrical activity directly into speech, the team responsible for the study, published in the newspaper Nature, took a three-step approach.

First, they asked participants to read sentences implanted on the surface of the brain, monitoring neural activity while recording the sound of words.

They then transformed these signals to represent the physical movement required for the speech-specific articulations of the jaw, mouth, and tongue before converting them into synthetic sentences.

Finally, they mobilized volunteers to identify the words and sentences of the computerized speech.

The recordings are strange: a little fuzzy, certainly, but the simulated sentences mimic those uttered by the volunteers so closely that most of the words can be clearly understood.

Although the experiment was conducted only with people able to speak, the team discovered that participants could synthesize their speeches, even when they were merely duplicating sentences.

"Very few of us have an idea of ​​what's going on in the mouth when we talk," said Edward Chang, lead author of the study.

"The brain translates these thoughts into movements of the vocal tract and that's what we try to decode."

This could potentially pave the way for an implant capable of translating into words the brain activity of patients who can speak but have lost the ability to do so.

"These thieves stole jewelry"

The phrases used in this study were simple statements and declarations, including: "Shipbuilding is a most fascinating process" and "These thieves stole thirty jewels".

Gopala Anumanchipalli, co-author of the study, told AFP that the words used would contribute to the addition of a database that would allow users to discern more complex claims.

"We have used phrases that are specifically intended to cover all the phonetic contexts of the English language," he said. "But they are only learned to be generalized."

The researchers identified a type of "shared" neural code between participants, suggesting that parts of the brain triggered by an attempt to articulate a word or phrase are the same throughout the world.

According to Mr. Chang, this could be a starting point for patients who are relearning to talk after an injury, who could train themselves to control their own simulated voice from the patterns learned by competent speakers.

Chethan Pandarinath and Yahia Ali, of Atlanta's Georgia Institute of Technology, wrote in a commentary commented "compelling."

"With continued progress, we can hope that people with speech impairments will regain the ability to speak freely and reconnect with the world around them," they wrote. – AFP

[ad_2]
Source link