“A brain implant is helping a man with paralysis to communicate with his family and friends and to use his personal computer at home.

The brain–computer interface (BCI) has given 48-year-old study participant Casey Harrell, who was diagnosed with a type of motor neuron disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis six years ago, the ability to communicate with an average speed of 56 words per minute. It translates neural activity into text that appears on a computer screen and allows him to operate a computer, send text messages and e-mails and continue his job working in climate advocacy.

It is ‘nothing short of revolutionary,’ says Harrell, who is based in Oakland, California. ‘This has allowed me to keep working and earn money and insurance for my family. This is reconnecting me with friends and family who are too shy or too afraid to come over and not be able to understand me.’

The study, published in Nature Medicine on 15 June, analysed Harrell’s home use of the BCI for nearly two years and is ‘the most extensive data set and the longest-running speech communication of anyone’ with such an implant, says co-author Sergey Stavisky, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Davis.

Previous studies of participants testing BCIs at home showed that the devices had limited efficiency, and more-advanced devices have been tested only in the laboratory. ‘This is actually helping the patient in day-to-day life,’ says Christian Herff, a computational neuroscientist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. BCIs are ‘really becoming a medical device instead of a research tool’, he adds.”

From Nature.