Stephen Hawkins uses a special computer technology which translates the movements of his cheek muscles to communicate with the outside world. His inability to move any other muscle is due to loss of muscular function from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) disease. Unfortunately, some patients with ALS do not even retain a single musclular function, while retaining all mental functions; a state called locked-in syndrome. It would be great to help such people with a technology that could directly read the thoughts of the unfortunate patient.
With this inspiration, Ujwal and colleagues developed a brain-computer interface capable of reading simple 'yes' or 'no' thoughts of completely locked-in individuals. The interface is completely non-invasive and can be trained to read thoughts to any question. With this they can increase the interactions with the patients, stimulating and enriching their time, and increasing contact with the outside world.
This generates a nucleus that can be expanded to read full sentences, a technology out of sci-fi, but surely of great use to the unfortunately paralyzed. Please listen to Ujwal on this amazing technology.
To know further on the research, please read:
Brain–Computer Interface–Based Communication in the Completely Locked-In State.
Chaudhary et al., PLoS Biology, 2017
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