For the first time, three tetraplegic people are able to control a commercial tablet device with their thoughts thanks to a brain-computer interface. The research suggests that people who lose the capacity to speak may be able continue to communicate with the technology.
The three study participants are part of a clinical trial to test a brain-computer interface (BCI) called BrainGate. BrainGate translates participant’s brain activity into commands that a computer can understand. In the new study, researchers first implanted microelectrode arrays into the area of the brain that governs hand movement. The participants “trained” the system by thinking about moving their hands, something the BCI learned to translate into actions on the screen.
The BCI decoded brain activity associated with subjects’ intent to move their hand and passed the information to a Bluetooth interface that works like a wireless computer mouse. The virtual mouse was paired to an off-the-shelf ...
