Brain computer interfaces give voice to patients suffering from speech paralysis

Often, when considering innovation, we only think about the creations that will impact the average consumer, and thus the masses. But, some of the most incredible innovations aim to serve very small niches.

Giving a voice

There are thousands of people that have lost the ability to speak, whether through injury, disease, or paralysis. For them, the options for communication can be quite limited—some people use a spelling card, indicating through facial gestures letter by letter the words they want to speak. Others, who still have tactile function, can use a hand clicker to pick words and phrases from a computer interface.

No matter the method, creating simple sentences can take minutes, and the amount of patience they must have is unimaginable for someone who’s never experienced this before.

Stanford wants to fix this problem

Stanford is working on a groundbreaking study with brain computer interfaces (BCI). BCI’s are nothing new, but they are working with the first to be surgically implanted in the head, called the BrainGate Neural Interface System.

The BrainGate Neural Interface System records signals from a region in the motor cortex that controls muscle movement. The tiny chips have 100 electrodes that penetrate the brain and can tap into individual nerve cells. It’s a major step up from older systems which only measured brain waves and blood flow from outside the scalp.

Stanford’s study consisted of three participants who suffer from severe limb weakness, either from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease) or from a spinal cord injury.

After a bit of training, they all mastered the typing interface and drastically improved the rate and accuracy of their output of words—some reaching the speeds of 8 words per minute.

Where are they going?

To you and I, eight words per minute is far from normal conversation speeds. But, the eventual goal would be for those with this implant to get good enough at using the system to reach a normal conversation rate of 125 words per minute .

Everything in between is a step in the right direction toward freeing those with speech paralysis from their thought chambers and letting us hear their voice.

When I heard about this innovation, I remembered a random fact that our brains can process upwards of 400 words per minute. So, I like to picture this innovation reaching monumental progress and actually boosting those with speech paralysis past the rate of normal conversation into a realm where we have to keep up with them.

Whoever says that healthcare is boring likely hasn’t taken the time to look what healthcare innovations can achieve—and are actually achieving today. Hopefully, this article helps in counter this stigma and showcases the incredible innovations of digital health the masses don’t often know about.