Collect Your Thoughts

“Relying on signals produced when a paralyzed person attempts speech makes it easy for that person to mentally zip their lip and avoid oversharing. But it also means they have to make a concerted effort to convey a word or sentence, which can be tiring and time consuming … The team wanted to know whether they could decode brain signals that are far more subtle than those produced by attempted speech. The team wanted to decode imagined speech.” Using technology to give paralyzed people the ability to speak is a remarkable achievement. The fact that these implants are getting closer to knowing (and sharing) what people think is a little scary. These brain implants speak your mind — even when you don’t want to.