UC Davis Health https://health.ucdavis.edu is recruiting people for a clinical trial with the goal of building a “neurological prosthesis” for restoring speech to people who have lost or are losing the ability to speak.
The research is aimed at people who have neurological injuries or progressive neurological diseases, such as spinal cord injury, stroke, or ALS. U.C Davis is joining BrainGate http://www.braingate.org, a consortium of universities and academic medical centers studying how brain computer interfaces can be used to restore neurological function in people living with paralysis.
Researchers at UC Davis are focusing on a condition known as anarthria where people who want to speak but are unable to control their vocal cords or mouth in a way that produces audible speech.
The problem is that with some diseases and injuries, the areas of the brain responsible for language and wanting to speak are intact, but the signals can’t get through to the nerves and muscles that need to receive command impulses to produce sound.
With this study, the researchers hope to “read” the brain signals meant to move the muscles involved in speaking which consist of the tongue, jaw, lips, voice box, and diaphragm and then translate the person’s intention to speak into comprehensible speech produced by a computer.
The researchers explain that the technology can’t read minds or detect inner monologue and thoughts. The investigational technology is being developed only to communicate the signals generated in the brain as part of intentional speech.
Sergey Stavisky, Neuroscientist and Neuroengineer and Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery, Scientific Lead for the Study, said, “We hope to learn what brain cells do when a person tries to speak. For example, what kind of information does this brain activity contain? How does that relate to movements of sounds that the person is trying to produce? We hope to answer these and many other questions.”