Researchers have succeeded, thoughts, signals from the brain in language. Her Vocoder could help patients with voice paralysis, to speak and to communicate with your fellow human beings.
It sounds like scary Science Fiction: – A Computer can read human thoughts. The prototype of the brain, researchers at Columbia University in New York have built, however, is not very frightening. The apparatus is able to be very clearly formulated thoughts in a reasonably understandable words – and that too only after several attempts and phases of Learning.The technology should not be thought monitoring, but people with a voice paralysis help, to finally communicate with their fellow human beings. Stroke patients or people who might be suffering from advanced Amytropher lateral sclerosis (als), voice finally speak with the help of a robot, the hope.
Computer reads thoughts and converts them in language
“We were able to show that the thoughts of these people decoded with the right technology, and finally heard and understood can be, says Nima Mesgarani,Professor of neurology and engineering at the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at the University of. Together with the neuro-surgeon Ashesh Dinesh Mehta, of North well Health Physician partners he published the results on 29. January 2019 in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
When people talk, or “think aloud” – that is, in spoken sentences, thinking – generate specific signal patterns in the brain. Comparable patterns also emerge when we listen to other people when Speaking or us just imagine, we would be listening to others.
For more on the brain-Computer interface: monkeys control a wheelchair with thought
Such a brain pacemaker can help patients with Parkinson’s disease or epilepsy today.
Artificial neural networks signal patterns in the brain to understand
So far, all Attempts have failed, these brain signals into intelligible audio signals.
Success had Vocoder, the research team led by Mesgarani and Mehta, finally, with a so-called. This is a Computer algorithm that can make use of Artificial intelligence language synthetically. To do this, he needs to be a longer period of time with the help of human voice recordings to be trained. So he will get better with time.
“It is the same technique, using Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s Siri, to generate questions with verbal answers,” explains Mesgarani.
Patients of Dr. Mehta helped to train the Vocoder. You listened to recordings of voices, during which the researchers recorded their brain waves. With these signals you trained the Vocoder.
Subsequently, the patients listened to the Recitation of Numbers from zero to nine. These, too, learned the Vocoder, and produced, finally, sounds that should correspond to the Numbers.
These sounds were not understandable and had to be processed by a Computer simulated neuronal network.
At the end of the experiment, a kind of robot came out voice-to-understand Figures to vilify.
To help more agents for paralysis: brain pacemaker helps Parkinson’s patients
A handy speech device for patients
Next, the researchers want to develop the technique with more complex words and sentences. Your goal is to build an implant with the brain signals can be measured.
A handy pocket computer could evaluate these signals, and in a trice, hope the researchers. Voice paralyzed patients could win back a part of your self-employment, Nima Mesgarani for sure: “He would give all who have lost their language, be it through illness or injury – the Chance to interact with their environment”.
More: stroke and dementia often follows
-
Squirrel: planning of the nut-hiding increases the size of the brainNimble climbers with a huge leap in power
Squirrels are the kings of the trees. Its striking bushy tail serves as a control and balance rudder, in the case of daredevil jumps from tree to tree. In addition, the exceptional anatomy of the jump, allows joints with a 180-degree rotation of the feet to the back for quick head-down climbing on tree trunks.
-
Squirrel: planning of the nut-hiding increases the size of the brainA Variety Of Dining Plan
The range of food for small rodents varies depending on the Season: in the spring of fresh buds and young shoots and the seeds, so the Buffet in the summer and autumn is stocked with plenty of delicious fruits, nuts, mushrooms and berries. But also in the cold Season, squirrels have to eat, after all, they do not hibernate.
-
Squirrel: planning of the nut-hiding increases the size of the brainLaborious to Collect and Hide
Therefore, the rodents must accumulate in the fall of a large stock of food. In the case of the nut-search and storage of a number of things must be considered: Where is the perfect hiding place, that is, in the end, found again? What is the nut corresponds to the quality criteria to be hidden at all? This requires a high level of thinking power of the squirrel during the autumn of collective action.
-
Squirrel: planning of the nut-hiding increases the size of the brainA lot of nut, much of the brain?
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley have discovered that some squirrels in the fall to think so much of nuts and their storage, that your brain is in this Season much greater than in the rest of the year.
-
Squirrel: planning of the nut-hiding increases the size of the brainEach Lot Of Nuts To Hide
Especially in the case of the Grey squirrel, the magnification of the brain: you buried your stock is widely scattered in their area and, thus, have numerous hiding places, you need to remember. Red squirrels bury their Treats rather point the way and defend the thieves of the stock then in front of the possible Lining.
-
Squirrel: planning of the nut-hiding increases the size of the brainQuality control on the Assembly line
However, not only is the correct storage location is an important criterion for the winter stock, the quality of the nut has to be right: The researchers assume that squirrels check in by using a particular head movement, the weight of a walnut, and with her fine paws, the Freshness and the condition of the shell check. In painstaking precision is to study each individual nut.
-
Squirrel: planning of the nut-hiding increases the size of the brainFind through mental maps
When just the smell helps them find meaning: researchers found that the rodents in the foresight of the nut-types sorted from each other and buried it. Thus, can remember the rodents better to hide – and Survive. Because the faster a squirrel finds its stock, the more nimble it can go back in the warm and safe Nest.