Inside the neural implant letting paralyzed patients type at 110 characters per minute
Before his disease took his voice, he could type a message as fast as anyone. Now, with electrodes no larger than a grain of rice embedded near the surface of his brain, he can do it again, at 110 characters per minute, with an error rate that would make most smartphone users envious. That’s the core of what researchers from Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute and Brown University are reporting in Nature Neuroscience: a brain-computer interface that lets people with paralysis type using a standard QWERTY keyboard, not by moving their hands, but by simply attempting to. The system interprets the brain’s intention to move specific fingers and translates those signals into letters, in real time, with no physical movement required. Two participants tested the device as part of the BrainGate2 clinical trial. One has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive disease that attacks the nerve cells controlling movement and speech. The other has a cervical spinal cord injury. Both used the system from their homes, not a research lab, a detail the team considers significant. …
