Posted on 11/17/2007 3:35:04 PM PST by BGHater
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Scientists say they may be on the brink of translating into words the thoughts of a man who can no longer speak, after a pioneering experiment. Electrodes have been implanted in the brain of Eric Ramsay, who has been "locked in" - conscious but paralysed - since a car crash eight years ago. These have been recording pulses in areas of the brain involved in speech. Now, New Scientist magazine reports, they are to use the signals he generates to drive speech software.
Although the data is still being analysed, researchers at Boston University believe they can correctly identify the sound Mr Ramsay's brain is imagining some 80% of the time.
CAUSES OF LOCKED-IN SYNDROME:
In the next few weeks, a computer will start the task of translating his thoughts into sounds. "We hope it will be a breakthrough," says Joe Wright of Neural Signals, which has helped develop the technology.
"Conversation is what we're hoping for, but we're pretty far from that." Reading minds Experts in the field of neuroscience agreed it was an exciting advance.
"It hasn't come completely out of the blue," said Professor Geraint Rees, a neuroscientist at University College London. "We have been moving towards decoding primitive vocabulary for a while now. But this is certainly an interesting development, although invasive techniques, where something is out in someone's brain, such as these will of course carry risks." Reading people's minds remains a far-off prospect, however. "There is a huge difference between a technique like this, which is able to pick up signals the subject wants to be picked up, and being able to delve deep into the mind," says Professor John Dylan Haynes of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. "It's very exciting that we are starting to be able to translate some basic thoughts, but we are a lot further away from a universal mind reading machine than some people hoped - or feared - we may be five years ago."
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Yeah, I read this and the first thing I thought was Hillary salivating at the thought of having all conservatives implanted with a mind-reading chip.
More like see what happens when you cross the klintons!
bmflr
He can blink and hear, he could have given permission. Just ask him, “You want to be wired up to a computer so we can try to find a way to hear your thoughts, blink 5 times quickly for yes”
and I bet he was so quick you couldn’t believe, he was a normal smart speaking human for 19 years, now at 27 trapped in a useless body with no way to communicate.
I would give doctor’s permission to try something like this on my daughter as long as it didn’t cause her any brain damage.
My 11 year old daughter has speech problems due to brain damage. Lots of the time she knows what she wants to say, but she can’t “find” the word to say it. She gets really frustrated. Also, her articulation is not very clear, so it is still hard to understand her.
My daughter is smart, so it is very frustrating not to be an effective communicator.
Couldn’t John Edwards channel him?
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