With the help of an implanted device that reads his brain signals, a man with late-stage ALS could select letters and form sentences.
In its final stages, the neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis can bring extreme isolation. People lose control of their muscles, and communication may become impossible.
The participant in the new study, a man with ALS who is now 36, started to work with a research team at the University of Tübingen in 2018, 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.
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. An audible tone got higher in pitch as the electrical firing of neurons near the implant sped up, lower as it slowed. Researchers asked the participant to change that pitch using any strategy. On the first day, he could move the tone, and by day 12, he could match it to a target pitch.
“We can only speculate” about what happened on the other days, Vansteensel says. The participant may have been asleep or simply not in the mood. Maybe the brain signal was too weak or variable to optimally set the computer’s decoding system, which required daily calibration. Relevant neurons may have drifted in and out of range of the electrodes, notes co-author Jonas Zimmermann, a neuroscientist at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering.
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