Quality Tale - News on Technology: patient

Guys, it is a new software who have helped to restore speech in a paralyzed man. This new software decodes the signals from a neural implant and voices them through a synthesiser.

Guys, it is a group of US-based scientists have provided a paralysed American man a chance to speak again, thanks to an electrode implanted in his stroke stricken brain.

Erik Ramsey, 24, was left 'almost totally paralysed' when he suffered a brain-stem stroke after a car accident years ago, however his mental faculties remained intact. In 2004, Phillip Kennedy's team at Neural Signals - a bioresearch firm based in Georgia, USA - implanted an electrode in his speech-motor cortex, hoping that the signal from Ramsey's cortex could help in restoring his speech. But this proved to be easier said than done.

However, another team led by Frank Guenther at Boston University was working on a similar problem at the time. Studying brain scans of healthy patients showed that brain signals don't code for words, but instead control the position of the lips, tongue, jaw and larynx to produce basic sounds.

Guenther's team then developed software that could identify and translate the patterns of brain activity during speech.

However, Klaus-Robert Muller at the Technical University of Berlin believes the technique might not be apt for fully 'locked-in' patients, who can't control any muscles. If you have completely locked-in patient, then the brain may begin to degrade because they are not able to control anything. Those patient might be completely unable to brain-control interface.

Guys, it is the development of Dr. Philip Kennedy and colleagues. The Doctors team developed a software that translates thoughts to a synthesiser via a neural implant, helping disabled patients communicate. What an Idea?

Sunday, July 13, 2008

A software helps to restore speech in a paralysed man