Doctors from Netherlands have performed the first-ever brain implant on a 58-year-old woman paralysed by Lou Gehrig’s disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-ALS). With this, she became the first patient to use a brain-computer interface. The implant has enabled paralysed women to communicate in day-to-day life via a speech computer. What is the case? Prior to this implant, the ALS
disease had caused nerve degeneration in the women and she was left completely locked-in. Her motor neurons had deteriorated to the point where she could only control her eye muscles. First-ever brain implant Doctors in first-ever brain implant directly installed a device called an electrocorticograph (ECoG) on the women’s brain. The device has electrodes fitted in the brain. Using these electrodes in brain, the patient can control the computer using brain signals, spell out messages at two letters per minute. How it works? These implanted electrodes detect brain activity that results when she moves fingers in her mind, and coverts it into a mouse click. The patient has a screen in front of her that includes the alphabet and some additional functions (such as selecting previously spelled words or deleting letters). Each letter on screen lights up one at a time, and by using her brain to click the mouse at the right time, she can compose words one letter at a time. These words then are vocalized by a speech computer. The entire process is done wirelessly.
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