It sounds like the novelty here is in the use of NIRS. A (very) similar approach was done in fMRI some years ago.<p>Paper cited by the present article: <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002593" rel="nofollow">http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour...</a><p>Original fMRI paper: <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.sci-hub.cc/doi/10.1002/ana.23656/full" rel="nofollow">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.sci-hub.cc/doi/10.1002/ana.23...</a>
I find it really fascinating that there's been problems using traditional brain-computer interfaces with these patients, and the researcher who developed this device specifically believes it's because once completely locked-in they actually experience a dramatic shift in the nature of their mental activity that prevents them from utilizing traditional BCI:<p><i>Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva and coauthor of the new research, has an idea about why this may be, although there’s little evidence to support it so far. He proposed that it becomes harder over time for patients to channel their thoughts into voluntary action. “Anything you want, everything you wish does not occur. So what the brain learns is that intention has no sense anymore,” he says. “It is too difficult for them to switch from [a] more reflective state into an attentive state."</i><p>And that the device they used itself was designed to be more a passive monitoring of mental perception of input:
<i>The team stuck to simple questions that could be answered with a yes or no. “The answer in your head…occurs quickly and it occurs like a reflex. You don’t have to mobilize a lot of resources for such a simple answer,” Birbaumer says.</i><p>Earlier paper from Birbaumer:
<i>We propose that a lack of contingencies between goal directed thoughts and intentions may be at the heart of this problem. Experiments with chronically curarized rats support our hypothesis; operant conditioning and voluntary control of autonomic physiological functions turned out to be impossible in this preparation. In addition to assisted communication, BCIs consisting of operant learning of EEG slow cortical potentials and sensorimotor rhythm were demonstrated to be successful in drug resistant focal epilepsy and attention deficit disorder. First studies of non-invasive BCIs using sensorimotor rhythm of the EEG and MEG in restoration of paralysed hand movements in chronic stroke and single cases of high spinal cord lesions show some promise, but need extensive evaluation in well-controlled experiments. Invasive BMIs based on neuronal spike patterns, local field potentials or electrocorticogram may constitute the strategy of choice in severe cases of stroke and spinal cord paralysis. Future directions of BCI research should include the regulation of brain metabolism and blood flow and electrical and magnetic stimulation of the human brain (invasive and non-invasive). A series of studies using BOLD response regulation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and near infrared spectroscopy demonstrated a tight correlation between voluntary changes in brain metabolism and behaviour.</i><p>[1] <a href="http://www.popsci.com/new-brain-computer-interface-helps-completely-paralyzed-people-communicate?dom=rss-default&src=syn" rel="nofollow">http://www.popsci.com/new-brain-computer-interface-helps-com...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002593" rel="nofollow">http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2151357/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2151357/</a>
1. Why would patients locked-in for years be "generally happy"? Any theories?<p>2. Did the fMRI people (see top comment) respond similarly as happy?
What's amazing to me is that these patients can see. They can't focus their cornea, because that would require muscle response. It's not even clear that they can blink so they would require eye drops to keep their eyes open.
They say they want to make improve it so patients can choose letters and spells stuff. But with with just a binary choice that can be done with 5 bits. Of course they will need more than that in order to increase accuracy.
I call bullshit.<p>The original paper is not bad as the article though, they call for replication for instance -<p>"In view of the gravity of the subject matter (i.e., establishing communication with nonverbal, completely paralyzed persons with preserved cognition), a call for replication of the current results by other investigators would be welcome. "
<i>The system, a portable brain-machine interface, translates brain activity into simple yes or no answers to questions with around 70 percent accuracy.</i><p>Let's not forget that this means that (in the current version of the system) about every third answer output by the system is wrong.
<i>“Anything you want, everything you wish does not occur. So what the brain learns is that intention has no sense anymore,”</i><p>That sounds like incredible hogwash. Why not admit you are doing the equivalent of connecting an oscilloscope to some random signal on a extremely complex high-speed board, and well, <i>it's not that easy</i>.
Should to reliveing to thousands paralyzed or with motor control difficulties.<p>Another similar field that can be even helpful to normal humans, is connecting the biological neural network to artificial one via nanobots. Immense benifits for increasing average human intelligence, education ...