Speech Restoration
Losing the ability to speak is often one of the most disabling symptoms of neurologic disease. For people with ALS, brainstem stroke, and other related conditions, the cortical areas that control language and speech are intact but cannot transmit their signals to the motor structures that produce speech. Through research discovering the neural signals responsible for speech production, and by utilizing cutting-edge machine learning techniques to generate advanced decoding algorithms, our research team is developing a system to restore fluent communication for people that have lost the ability to speak. As we learn how to decode intended speech directly from the cortex, signals will be paired with text-generating or synthetic speech-generating devices to restore fluent conversational speech for people affected by neurologic injury or disease.
Related Publications
Wilson GH, Stavisky SD, Willett FR, Avansino DT, Kelemen JN, Hochberg LR, Henderson JM, Druckmann S, Shenoy KV.
Decoding spoken English from intracortical electrode arrays in dorsal precentral gyrus.
J Neural Eng. 2020 Nov 11;17(6). doi: 0.1088/1741-2552/abbfef.
Stavisky SD, Willett FR, Avansino DT, Hochberg LR, Shenoy KV, Henderson JM.
Speech-related dorsal motor cortex activity does not interfere with iBCI cursor control.
J Neural Eng. 2020 Feb 5;17(1):016049. doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/ab5b72.PMID: 32023225.
Stavisky SD, Willett FR, Wilson GH, Murphy BA, Rezaii P, Avansino DT, Memberg WD, Miller JP, Kirsch RF, Hochberg LR, Ajiboye AB, Druckmann S, Shenoy KV, Henderson JM.
Neural ensemble dynamics in dorsal motor cortex during speech in people with paralysis.
eLife. 2019 Dec 10;8:e46015.