Technology has led to great discoveries in medicine. So much so that there are many diseases that have been discovered and even how to cure them thanks to the creation of new devices and devices.
This time history has been made at the University of California as it was the first time that a paralyzed person has been able to speak again thanks to an implant that has been made in the brain.
This patient suffered a brain injury more than a decade ago and could only speak using a writing device-based system. This person is 30 years old, so being able to speak again at such a young age is of great importance to him.
This new device, a success
Although it can only speak a little more than 40 words, this is a success, since this system is totally different from anything previously done to try to help people with paralysis to articulate words.
It works like this: this implant explores the areas of the brain responsible for speech. So, although the person cannot physically move the mouth, this device sends the signals to the throat to be able to emit the sounds. This differs from other devices that used screens and letters to help these people speak.
To implant this device in the brain of the patient requires a surgical operation . For a time, records were made of how the brain behaved and later a kind of network was created that would help translate what the person was trying to tell.
It was shown that to different questions that the researchers asked the patient, the patient was able to answer with short but whole sentences.
A lot of potential, but it needs to be improved
This represents a technology with great potential for the future and that could help all those who suffer difficulties when speaking in the future.
However, it is still necessary to try to optimize the system so that it offers perfect performance since it has only achieved just over 70% precision in all the tests carried out.
Through a series of new improvements such as introducing new information within the implant database or an interface that helps to better understand what someone means and the corresponding translation of the implant, it is expected that the operation of this device can soon be improved. .
It is expected that more people will use this technological innovation and take advantage of these new tests to try to optimize the implant and ensure that these affected people can expand all the words they can say.