A paralyzed man with no voluntary control of his muscles, including his eyes, has regained the ability to communicate in full sentences through a brain implant. After months of practice with a brain implant, the man was able to compose a full sentence: “I love my cool son.” The findings are detailed in a Nature Communications paper published Tuesday (March 22).
A few years ago, the now 36-year-old man was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive neurodegenerative disease that kills off motor neurons. Patients with ALS gradually lose the ability to speak, eat, and breathe on their own, and typically die within five years of their diagnosis. But even when completely paralyzed, many ALS patients can still see, hear, and smell—abilities that researchers rely on when developing new communication devices.
In 2016, a team of researchers reported that, with the help of a brain implant that detected attempts ...
