A research team at Algoma University is making unprecedented advances in technology that allows a paralyzed person to communicate using only brain power.
The work being done at Dr. George Townsend’s Brain Computer-Interface Lab could dramatically improve the ability to people with devastating neurodegenerative diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, to compose sentences.
Dr. Townsend’s team has had great success working on improvements to the system whereby a patient, wearing an EEG cap that monitors their brain activity, watches a screen with a flashing checkboard of letters and painstakingly selects letters to form sentences. The team implemented changes to the layout and design of the images, the software, and the computer hardware to improve the speed and accuracy rate of the process. The speed their system has achieved at which a user’s brain can output the information – 120 bits a minute – is significantly faster than any previously recorded.
By switching from a computer to a credit card-sized Raspberry Pi interface, the Algoma team aims to make the system cheap and accessible for every user who needs one.
