Neurosurgeon Phil Kennedy, a pioneer in brain-machine interfaces that enable “locked-in” patients to control computers with their minds, is trying to build a system that will translate imagined speech into computer speech so that severely paralyzed people could “talk” just by thinking. He couldn’t find the right research subject to work with and even if he did, the FDA, concerned about prior experiments, wouldn’t approve his company, Neural Signals, to do more implants. So last year, Kennedy flew to Belize City where a surgeon implanted electrodes in the scientist’s own brain. After two very risky surgeries, he was able to start his experiments on his own brain’s data.
via Boing Boing
