Researchers have eavesdropped on the internal monologue in our brains for the first time. The achievement is a step towards helping people who cannot physically speak communicate with the outside world.
Pasley and his colleagues recorded brain activity in people who already had electrodes implanted in their brain to treat epilepsy, while they listened to speech. The team found that certain neurons in the brain's temporal lobe were only active in response to certain aspects of sound, such as a specific frequency. The team built an algorithm that could decode the words heard based on neural activity alone.
The algorithm isn't perfect, says Stephanie Martin, who worked on the study with Pasley. "We got significant results but it's not good enough yet to build a device."
![]()
Electrodes distributed over the brain Credit: Adeen Flinker, UC Berkeley
Read more »![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
Pasley and his colleagues recorded brain activity in people who already had electrodes implanted in their brain to treat epilepsy, while they listened to speech. The team found that certain neurons in the brain's temporal lobe were only active in response to certain aspects of sound, such as a specific frequency. The team built an algorithm that could decode the words heard based on neural activity alone.
The algorithm isn't perfect, says Stephanie Martin, who worked on the study with Pasley. "We got significant results but it's not good enough yet to build a device."
Electrodes distributed over the brain Credit: Adeen Flinker, UC Berkeley
Read more »
