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    Home > Biochemistry News > Biotechnology News > Subvert textbooks! Stanford scientists stumble on new breakthrough in decoding human speech

    Subvert textbooks! Stanford scientists stumble on new breakthrough in decoding human speech

    • Last Update: 2020-06-17
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    Cars fly in the sky, robots do housework, clothes automatically regulate temperature, some people migrate to Mars, brain waves transmit consciousness..These have been "set" in the world in 2020Although science fiction is not quite a reality, we are undoubtedly witnessing the birth of many new technologies, some of which have even gone beyond what we once thoughtBrain Machine Interface (BCI) is a rather sci-fi-sounding technique that uses the interpretation of neuroelectric activity signals to exchange information between external devices and the brainRecently, a team of neurosurgery experts and engineers from Stanford University, in the field of brain-machine interfaces, has overturned decades of understanding of the brain and provided a new way for researchers to help speech-deprived people restore speech in the futureresearch published in the prestigious open source journal eLife1930s, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield and colleagues proposed a model to explain how the brain controls movementsIn a long area of the brain that spans the top of the head, the motor cortex, different areas control the movement of different parts of the hand, legs, face, etclater studies have made this simplified model more complicated, such as finding that the brain regions responsible for subdivisions such as fingers and palms are somewhat crossedBut in general, as we often see in neuroscience textbooks, the "motion villain" model shows that the main parts of the human body are controlled separately by different areas of the cortexthe larger the organ of the "motion villain" that indicates that the larger the motor cortex area in the brain responsible for the organ's movements (picture source: 123RF)in a clinical trial launched a decade ago, scientists studying brain interfaces began implanting special sensors in the cerebral cortex of some volunteers, reading neuronal signals in specific brain regions and using algorithms to convert them into action prosthesis, with the aim of allowing paralysed volunteers to control computers and devices such as "mindfulness"in the brains of several of the participants, the sensors were placed in an area of their motor cortex called the "hand knot"This area has been thought to be associated with the movement of the hands and arms in the past2017, Professor Krishna Shenoy, an electrical engineer at Stanford University, and Professor Jamie Henderson, a neurosurgery specialist, published a major development of the project: They used the brain interface to decode the signals of neurons in the brain region, allowing several paralysed people to successfully type their minds with precision and speed!implanted in two sensors in the "handle" area of the brain's motor cortex, which can record nerve activity in the area (Photo: Jamie Henderson / Stanford University)As the team of professors Shenoy and Professor Henderson continue to decode nerve signals in the minds of the volunteers, this time there are unexpected new discoveries! According to lead author Dr Stavisky, , two of the patients involved in the trial were quadriplegic because of a spinal cord injury, but were still able to speak The researchers were then able to look at neural activity in the areas associated with the movement of the cortex as the volunteers spoke loudly "It's a typical 'I don't know what's going to happen', " Says Professor Shenoy " The -on-sensor's array of electrodes was able to record the volunteers' neural activity signals at the resolution of a single neuron (Photo: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Credit: Peter Barreras) results, and Dr Stavisky and colleagues found that the volunteers' neuronal activity changed significantly when they were given a "start-up" prompt These neurons were supposed to be active in controlling the movement of the hands and arms, but they became active when the volunteers spoke not only, but when the volunteers made different sounds, the neurons had different patterns of activity The researchers provided the volunteers with a list of 10 words that recorded their neural signals as they spoke each word By analyzing neural activity patterns, the researchers were able to identify which words the volunteers were speaking, with 85% and 55% accuracy among the two volunteers! Dr Stavisky says they wanted to record neural activity in this brain region as volunteers say longer sentences and paragraphs Then, by decoding the nerve signals, the volunteers were able to reproduce what they said "I'm very excited about this paper, " commented Dr Stavisky, Professor Shenoy and Professor Henderson (Photo: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Credit: Jaimie Henderson), another prominent scientist in the field of brain interfaces, the study It raises the question of how much exclusivity is distributed in a particular area of the brain.. I think (the lack of exclusivity) is something we didn't fully realize in the past also means that the area of the motor cortex associated with hand movements may be a previously unknown breakthrough by allowing the incapacitated person to speak back researchers hope that building on the findings, they hope to build a brain-implanted medical device in the future that will help people who have lost their ability to speak regain their speech skills Asked when the device was expected to become a reality, Professor Shenoy said: "I think we can see something in the next 10 years "
    we're looking forward to the next decade of progress and breakthroughs to bring sci-fi into reality Reference
    DOI: 10.7554/eLife.46015 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.18554 to "Read" the Brain Signals Underlying Human Speech Retrieved Dec 30, 2019, from from Speech Decoded from Brain Activity in Area for Hand Control Retrieved Dec 30, 2019, from
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