The development of direct neuro-control over virtual or physical devices would… improve quality of life immensely for those who suffer from impaired communication skills\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Mindy McCumberFlorida Hospital<\/p><\/div>\n
Now, Brian Pasley of the University of California, Berkeley and a team of colleagues have taken that “stimulus reconstruction” work one step further.<\/p>\n
“This is inspired by a lot of Jack’s work,” Dr Pasley said. “One question was… how far can we get in the auditory system by taking a very similar modelling approach?”<\/p>\n
The team focused on an area of the brain called the superior temporal gyrus, or STG.<\/p>\n
This broad region is not just part of the hearing apparatus but one of the “higher-order” brain regions that help us make linguistic sense of the sounds we hear.<\/p>\n
The team monitored the STG brain waves of 15 patients who were undergoing surgery for epilepsy or tumours, while playing audio of a number of different speakers reciting words and sentences.<\/p>\n
The trick is disentangling the chaos of electrical signals that the audio brought about in the patients’ STG regions.<\/p>\n
\n