Is it likely that a person who originally has no language ability is cheerfully discussing the World Cup with you? The answer is yes.
In a paper published in Nature Communications on November 8, 2022, researchers have successfully changed the brain waves of an aphasic (失语症) paralyzed person into sentences, which are displayed on the computer screen and can "say" thousands of words, as is intended.
This participant is 30 years old. A decade ago he was aphasic due to stroke, his arms and legs unable to move. He depended on a pole pinned on the baseball cap to click the letters on the screen to communicate with people. It's quite inconvenient.
Last year researchers from the University of California used the latest technology to implant (植入) a device into the speech motor area of his brain and connect it with a neural (神经的) instrument to monitor brain wave patterns when he expressed different words. They used computer programs to build a language model with a vocabulary of 50 words for him. When he used these words to "speak" in his mind, his brain wave movement was turned into complete sentences and shown on the screen. For months the team recorded his neural activity when he "spoke", used AI to identify various patterns and linked them to the words. Once a researcher asked on the screen, "Do you want some water?" And he answered, "No. I'm not thirsty."
"The spelling speed of the device reaches 29.4 characters per minute. The character error rate is only 6.13%. The offline test results show it can be expanded to a large vocabulary containing 9000 words, maintaining a low character error rate-8.23%," said Sean Metzger, the lead author of the paper. "Aphasic people like to use this device as it makes communication convenient. Anything is possible."
More aphasic people are needed to participate in the test, which is still a long way from promotion. Experts warn although the study results are impressive, electrode implantation is risky.
