Australian-based brain computer interface (BCI) company Synchron has enabled a 62-year-old man suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), known to many of you as the famous scientist Stephen Hawkind, to convert his thoughts directly into tweets with a device implanted in his brain.
The man named Philip O’Keefe, who was paralyzed due to his illness, converted his thoughts into writing thanks to the device implanted in his brain, and said, “Hello, World!” on the personal Twitter account of Thomas Oxley, CEO of Synchron. shared as. “Short tweet. Monumental progress. “My hope is to pave the way for people to tweet through their thoughts,” O’Keefe continued.
The device requires a lot of practice
O’Keefe, who collapsed the entire nervous system and lost many motor functions due to ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, became unable to work; In April 2020 he received the Stentrode BCI, a small stent-mounted electrode array implanted into the brain via the jugular. “When I first heard about this technology, I knew how much independence it could give me,” O’Keefe said in a statement. He notes that once you understand how it’s done, however, using the system becomes extremely natural.
O’Keefe states that all he has to do to use the system now is to think about where he wants to click on the computer, and states that he can now send e-mails, handle banking transactions, shop online, and send messages to the world via Twitter.
An important moment as a symbol for technology
Testing of the neurotechnology device on volunteers was approved by the FDA in July. For this groundbreaking initiative, the company claims that for the first time in history someone has been able to post directly to social media through a BCI, noting that this is a symbolically significant moment for technology that could open the door for people with paralysis to stay in touch with the world.
“These hilarious holiday tweets are indeed a momentous moment for the field of implantable brain-computer interfaces,” Oxley said in a statement, highlighting the bond, hope, and freedom that BCIs have given to people like Phil, who have been stripped of much of their functional independence due to restrictive paralysis.
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