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Goals: To restore conversational
speech.
Methodology: In paralyzed patients, as in able-bodied persons, the
command to speak is detectable as heightened activity of neural signals
within a strip of the brain called the Speech motor area, part of
which is known as Broca’s area.
Neural Signal's
patented neurotrophic electrode is implanted to detect electrical activity in
this area. The electrical data recorded by the electrode is exported to a
computer that decodes the pattern of firings of the neural signals. There
are 39 phonemes in English, so decoding these patterns should allow us to
reconstruct speech. This has been
achieved offline.
Availability: Systems are available as a therapeutic device
under research protocols.
Research and
Development Collaborators:
1) Dr. Hui Mao of Emory University - Dept. of Neuroradiology
2) Dinal Andreasen and Prof. Paul Hasler of the Georgia Institute
of Technology
3) Prof. Mark Clements of the Georgia Institute of Technology
4) Prof. Andrew Schwartz and Dr. Meel Velliste of the University of
Pittsburgh
5)
Prof. Frank Guenther and Mr. Jonathan Brumberg, Boston University, MA.
6)
Prof. Lee Miller and Jim Rebesco, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL.
Data Sharing:
Neural Signals has made the clinical data obtained during the Speech
Prosthesis Project available for other researchers at the following
website.
http://migrate.speechprosthesis.org/DNN2
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