Berkeley engineers develop an AI technology that can help restore natural communication
Published by Nature in August 2023, scientists and engineers from UC Berkeley developed a neural prosthetic to enable speech in those unable to speak because of various afflictions, such as brainstem strokes. Led by Dr. Gopala Anumanchipalli, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at Berkeley, and implanted by Dr. Edward Chang, M.D. a neurosurgeon at UCSF, the implanted device allowed a patient to speak for the first time in 18 years since her injury. Unlike Neuralink, and the technology not developed by Elon Musk, the Berkeley/UCSF technology made little mention in mainstream media.
The Berkeley/UCSF team implanted a paper-thin rectangle of 253 electrodes onto the surface of her brain over areas they previously discovered were critical for speech. The electrodes record the brain signals that, if not for the stroke, would have gone to muscles in Ann’s lips, tongue, jaw and larynx, as well as her face. A cable, plugged into a port fixed to Ann’s head, connected the electrodes to a bank of computers.
For weeks, the patient (Ann) worked with the team to train the system’s artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to recognize her unique brain signals for speech. This involved repeating different phrases from a 1,024-word conversational vocabulary over and over again until the computer recognized the brain activity patterns associated with all the basic sounds of speech.
The work at Berkeley/UCSF continues without the hype of a ketamine addicted, attention seeking misanthrope who seems to dominate the corporatized mainstream media, the purveyors of stuff that reflects their “do anything for money” mentality.
Stem Cells, Health, Technology 