Brain implant allows paralyzed patient to produce vowel sounds
このQ&Aのポイント
Researchers have successfully implanted an electrode into the brain of a man with locked-in syndrome, allowing him to produce vowel sounds using a speech synthesizer.
The electrode, designed by neuroscientist Philip Kennedy, remains in the speech-production areas of the man's brain and is impregnated with neurotrophic factors to encourage neuron growth and anchor it in place for long-term use.
This breakthrough could potentially help similar patients communicate using signals from their brains, paving the way for the production of whole sentences in the future.
英文和訳です
An electrode implanted into the brain of a man who is unable to move or communicate has enabled him to use a speech synthesizer to produce vowel sounds as he thinks them.
The work could one day help similar patients to produce whole sentences using signals from their brains, say the researchers.
Frank Guenther of Boston University in Massachusetts and his colleagues worked with a patient who has locked-in syndrome, a condition in which patients are almost completely paralysed ― often able to move only their eyelids ― but still fully conscious.
Guenther and his team first had to determine whether the man’s brain could produce the same speech signals as a healthy person’s.
So they scanned his brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while he attempted to say certain vowels.
Once the researchers were happy that the signal were the same, they implanted an electrode ― designed by neuroscientist Philip Kennedy of the firm Neural Signals in Duluth, Georgia ― into the speech-production areas of the man’s brain.
The electrode will remain there for the foreseeable future.
The electrode is different to others used for brain-computer interfaces, most of which are fixed to the skull rather than within a specific part of the brain.
This means that the electrodes can move around, making it difficult to record from the same neurons every time or to leave the electrode in place for more than a few months at a time.
The electrode used by Guenther’s team is impregnated with neurotrophic factors, which encourage neurons to grow into and around the electrode, anchoring it in place and allowing it to be recorded from for a much longer time.
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