A team of scientists managed to make paralyzed people operate a tablet by implanting a brain-interface in their brains.computer.
Last year, a study from the scientific effort called BrainGate reported that a Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) allowed a paralyzed person to type up to eight words per minute, just by thinking. Now, according to new results from a BrainGate2 clinical trial, the same BCI was used to help three participants operating a tablet computer.
All three participants suffer from loss of movement in their arms due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also called Lou Gehrig's disease) or spinal cord injury. All were fitted with a brain implant and an array of microelectrodes as part of the clinic essayto him BrainGate2. In this particular study, the neural signals expressed by the implant were routed through a protocol, providing a virtual mouse. This "mouse" was paired with a Google Nexus 9 tablet via Bluetooth.
Each participant was asked to test seven common applications on the tablet: e-mail, chat, schedule browsing στο Web, κοινή χρήση βίντεο, streaming μουσικής, πρόγραμμα για καιρικές συνθήκες και πρόγραμμα συγκέντρωσης news. Οι ερευνητές ρώτησαν επίσης τους χρήστες εάν ήθελαν οποιεσδήποτε πρόσθετες εφαρμογές, και στη συνέχεια πρόσθεσαν την εφαρμογή πληκτρολογίου, ψώνια στο Amazon και μια αριθμομηχανή. Οι συμμετέχοντες έφτασαν έως και 22 κλικ ανά λεπτό και δακτυλογράφησαν έως 30 χαρακτήρες ανά λεπτό, σε προγράμματα ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου και κειμένου.
In addition, all three participants really enjoy using the tablet.
