https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07-success-patient-power-thought.html?sfnsn=mo
A scientific breakthrough by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital) has demonstrated the potential for speech by a silent person using the power of thought only. In an experiment, a silent participant imagined saying one of two syllables. Depth electrodes implanted in his brain transmitted the electrical signals to a computer, which then vocalized the syllables.
The study was led by Dr. Ariel Tankus of Tel Aviv University’s School of Medical and Health Sciences and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital), along with Dr. Ido Strauss of Tel Aviv University’s School of Medical and Health Sciences and director of the Functional Neurosurgery Unit at Ichilov Hospital.
The results of this study were published in the journal Neurosurgery. These findings offer hope for enabling people who are completely paralyzed—due to conditions such as ALS, brainstem stroke, or brain injury—to regain the ability to speak voluntarily.
“The patient in the study is an epilepsy patient who was hospitalized in order to undergo resection of the epileptic focus in his brain,” explains Dr. Tankus. “In order to do this, of course, you need to locate the focal point, which is the source of the ‘short’ that sends powerful electrical waves through the brain.
“This situation pertains to a smaller subset of epilepsy patients who do not respond well to medication and require neurosurgical intervention, and an even smaller subset of epilepsy patients whose suspected focus is located deep within the brain, rather than on the surface of the cortex. To identify the exact location, electrodes have to be implanted into deep structures of their brains. They are then hospitalized, awaiting the next seizure.