A new device developed by a research team at UC Berkeley is able to produce mechanical speech using only the thought of the word being produced from the subject. The researchers hope that this device will enable patients suffering from conditions that limit or prohibit spoken communication, such as the effects from a stroke or Lou Gehrig’s disease, to be able to communicate normally.

The researchers placed electrodes on the surface of the subjects’ brains in the region associated with language, then recorded the electrical patterns their brains produced when perceiving spoken speech. This information was then applied to a computer model that sorted out which patterns belonged to which sounds, creating maps of the subjects’ perceived speech patterns.
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A research team at Ohio University has enabled a man suffering from quadriplegia to regain partial use of his right hand, using signals recorded by an implant that was surgically placed in his brain. "For the first time, a human with quadriplegia regained volitional, functional movement through the use of intracortically recorded signals linked to neuromuscular stimulation in real-time," the study’s text proclaims.

Ian Burkhart, now 24, broke his neck six years ago in a swimming accident, resulting in his paralysis. Two years ago, he underwent the procedure to have an implant inserted into his brain’s motor cortex, where the device picks up on the signals that would ordinarily be sent to the rest of his body to activate his muscles.
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Researchers at Duke University have developed a new brain-machine interface that allows a pair of monkeys to control motorized wheelchairs with only their thoughts. This development is intended to provide an alternative method of controlling the mobility devices for physically disabled people, as some individuals are unable to blink their eyelids to direct a wheelchair’s controls.
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