Mind Reading Computer System May Help People with Locked-in Syndrome
From: National Science Foundation - 10/17/2011
By: Miles O'Brien 

The US National Science Foundation's Center of Excellence for Learning in
Education, Science and Technology is conducting research, led by Boston
University's Frank Guenther, into how brain regions interact to create
brain-computer interfaces that help people with locked-in syndrome. "People
who have no other means of communication can start to control a computer that
can produce words for them or they can manipulate what happens in a robot and
allow them to interact with the world," Guenther says. In one experiment, a
volunteer uses a speech synthesizer to make vowel sounds just by thinking
about moving a specific part of the body. Guenther says the technology could
be very beneficial for lots of people, not just those with locked-in
syndrome. "This sort of thing would allow them to produce synthetic speech,
which could be used to talk to the people around them and mention their
needs," he says. In another experiment, researchers analyze how a volunteer's
naked eye looks at lights flashing at slightly different frequencies. "The
neurons in his visual cortex start firing in synchrony with the checkerboard
he's looking at, and so we can pick up the frequency and from that determine
which choice he was trying to make, left, right, forward or backward, for
example," Guenther says. 

Read the entire article and view a video at:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/brainmachine.jsp

Links:
CNS Speech Lab
http://speechlab.bu.edu/

Frank Guenther
http://cns.bu.edu/~guenther/

Sean Lorenz
http://techlab.bu.edu/members/sean/
http://celest.bu.edu/our-people/profile/sean-lorenz

Building Brain-Computer Interfaces for Paralyzed People
http://celest.bu.edu/assets/highlights/77/building_brain_computer_interfaces_for_paralyzed_people.pdf