. This progressive nervous system disease causes its patients to lose muscle control.
The research team started to work with him when he could still move his eyes. He told the team he wanted an invasive implant to try to maintain communication with his family, including his young son. His wife and sister provided written consent for the surgery.
Then, they inserted two square electrode arrays into a part of the brain that controls movement. When they asked the man to try to move his hands, feet, head, and eyes, the neural signals weren’t consistent enough to answer yes-or-no questions.
After nearly 3 months of unsuccessful efforts, the team tried neurofeedback, in which a person attempts to modify their brain signals while getting a real-time measure of whether they are succeeding.
Not much later, the patient was able to construct words and full sentences with help from mental impulses.
Still, the study shows it’s possible to maintain communication with a person as they become locked in by adapting an interface to their abilities.
But hundreds of hours went into designing, testing, and maintaining the personalized system, they are nowhere near getting this into an assistive technology state that could be purchased by a family.
Source: Medindia
