Vansteensel MJ, Pels EG, Bleichner MG, Branco MP, Denison T, Freudenburg ZV, Gosselaar P, Leinders S, Ottens TH, Van Den Boom MA, Van Rijen PC, Aarnoutse EJ, Ramsey NF. Fully Implanted Brain-Computer Interface in a Locked-In Patient with ALS. N Engl J Med. 2016 Nov 24;375(21):2060-2066. Epub 2016 Nov 12 PubMed.
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Massachusetts General Hospital and Brown University
People with locked-in syndrome—for example, people with advanced ALS—need technologies that can maintain or restore their ability to communicate. This is a basic goal for new technologies called brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Many researchers, including our own group (www.braingate.org), are developing and testing exciting BCIs that we hope will provide rapid, intuitive, flexible control of communication devices such as tablet computers. In this paper, the Utrecht team wonderfully achieved a purposefully simple yet important goal: a fully implanted system—using available components—that would restore the ability to make a single selection, akin to a "click" or ringing a bell. With that, after considerable training, a woman with ALS was able to control a “serial speller” just by thinking about squeezing her own hand in order to issue a "click" to a computer displaying letters in a series of rows and columns. This is great research, not only in its thoughtful focus on a singular goal, but as another important step toward creating powerful, fully implanted neuroprosthetic systems to help people with paralysis and locked-in syndrome.
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