For generations, the brain has only been studied in moments stolen from ordinary life — brief, controlled, artificial. Now, through implants placed in patients with epilepsy and ALS, neuroscientists are witnessing the living brain as it actually speaks, imagines, and intends — not in the hush of a laboratory, but in the full texture of daily existence. What is emerging from these continuous recordings is a richer map of how speech is born in neural tissue, one that may one day help restore the voices of those who have lost them.
BCIs unlock secrets of how the brain plans and produces speech
BCIs are implanted in patients with epilepsy and ALS to help them function while enabling research into their neural activity.