She Couldn’t Speak Until a Revolutionary Brain Implant Turned Her Thoughts Into Words: ‘I Have a Lot to Say’

Paradromics, a neurotechnology startup founded in 2015 by CEO Matt Angle, announced this week that a woman with a severe neurological condition used its brain implant to hold real-time conversations through a computer-generated voice.

The 68-year-old unnamed Michigan patient has lost most of her ability to speak. The experimental device allowed her to communicate spontaneously, including during phone calls with her grandchildren, The New York Times recently reported. 

Brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, use electrodes implanted in the brain to detect signals. AI then translates those signals into words.

When the patient tried to speak, the implant detected brain activity linked to her intended words. The system sent that information wirelessly to a computer, which displayed and spoke the words aloud. It also worked when she only imagined speaking, without moving her speech muscles.

Experts told the Times that the wireless system is an important step toward making brain implants practical for daily use. Unlike some earlier systems, it does not require the patient to be connected to a computer by a cord.

The patient was the first to receive the implant

The woman was the first person to receive Paradromics’ Connexus brain-computer interface in a clinical trial. Doctors implanted the device, which has more than 400 electrodes, at University of Michigan Health in June.

Paradromics plans to enroll 10 patients in a nationwide clinical trial. The trial will include people with conditions that cause paralysis and make it hard to speak or move, including stroke and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Dr. William Marks, Paradromics’ chief clinical officer, told the Times.

The patient has primary lateral sclerosis. The disease damages the nerve cells that control movement used for speaking, swallowing and walking. She can still move some speech muscles, but most people cannot understand her words clearly, Marks said.

Angle said the device could identify different types of brain activity tied to communication. “We can see the representation of words and phonemes whether she tries to say it, she imagines it or even if she just listens to it,” Angle told the Times. 

In a video from Paradromics, researchers asked the woman to say anything she wanted. She smiled and slowly tried to speak. Although her words were difficult to understand, the system quickly translated them into a computer voice: “Okay, I have a lot to say.”

Dr. Edward Chang, the chairman of neurological surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, has worked on advancing developments in the brain-computer interface area for years. Though he was not part of the Paradromics trial, he was complimentary about the company’s groundbreaking work. 

“Their demonstration gets us one step closer to clinical reality for restoring speech communication for people with severe paralysis,” Chang told the Times.