Typewriters, monkeys, Shakespeare... and hope
SCIENTISTS have devised a groundbreaking way of helping paralysed patients to communicate – and have tested it by getting monkeys to copy out Shakespeare.
US researchers have developed a device called a “brain-computer interface”, which allows users to select letters on a computer screen just by using the power of thought.
Clever software picks up the brain signals and turns them into movement.
The scientists, from Stanford University, implanted two rhesus macaque monkeys with electrodes in the part of the brain that controls hand movement.
The monkeys were able to move a cursor around a grid that represented letters of the alphabet by thinking about moving up and down, left and right.
When a square on a computer screen lit up, the monkeys were able to move a cursor to that square using just their brains to indicate their selection. So letter by letter, the monkeys were able to copy a passage from Hamlet.
Researcher Dr Paul Nuyujukian said: “This may have great promise. It enables a typing rate sufficient for a meaningful conversation.”
Other methods of helping people to communicate involve tracking eye movements. Theoretical physicist, cosmologist and director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge, Stephen Hawking uses movements of individual muscles in the face to “type”. – Daily Mail