Typing with thoughts
Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. It’s easy to
find patients that due to a large variety of disease they end up having a
muscular malfunction. One of the most frequents disease with this type of
consequences is stroke. Strokes a.k.a CVA, very frequently left aphasia as
a consequence of a cerebral ischemia. Communication with this patients or
others can be difficult and until now solutions there weren’t solutions for
those who had a total paralysis.
Dr. Jonathan R. Wolpaw and it’s team has developed an interface to
ease the communication with those patients. They have built a system that
require minimal interaction but it’s extremely powerful. BCI, the interface,
allows people to use electrical signals from the brain, rather than muscles, to
select letters for word-processing. During the process, a flashing matrix of
letters is shown in a screen visible to the user. Each letter displays a unique
flashing pattern, so when you focus on one, your brain activity mirrors that
letter’s flashing pattern, and the computer can figure out which part of the
flashing matrix has caught your attention.
It’s clear that there is a whole new world for the medicine that just started
with projects like BCI.