{"id":1214,"date":"2016-10-27T18:34:20","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T22:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/guentherlab\/?page_id=1214"},"modified":"2016-10-28T17:30:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T21:30:52","slug":"neural-prosthetics-for-speech-restoration","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/guentherlab\/research-projects\/neural-prosthetics-for-speech-restoration\/","title":{"rendered":"Neural Prosthetics for Speech Restoration"},"content":{"rendered":"

In collaboration with Dr. Philip Kennedy and colleagues at Neural Signals, Inc.<\/a>, we created the world’s first brain-computer interface for real-time speech generation in 2007. This system decoded neural signals recorded from an electrode implanted in the speech motor cortex of a human volunteer with locked-in syndrome (characterized by full consciousness with near-complete paralysis) while he imagined speaking. This work received widespread coverage in the popular media, including pieces by\u00a0CNN<\/a>,\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>Boston Globe<\/a>, and\u00a0Esquire Magazine<\/a>. A schematic of the brain-computer interface is provided below; further details about the system can be found in Guenther et al. (2009)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Guenther_fig1\"<\/p>\n

Schematic of a brain-computer interface for real-time speech generation (Guenther et al., 2009).<\/strong><\/p>\n

In more recent work, we developed a novel speech synthesizer that provides natural-sounding speech using a simple 2-dimensional input\u00a0that can be generated via brain signals or muscle signals collected with electromyography (EMG). The video below, created by members of the Stepp Lab<\/a> at Boston University, shows a user controlling this synthesizer via EMG signals from the face.<\/p>\n

\n\/guentherlab\/files\/2016\/10\/FrankSynth-video.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

Publications<\/h4>\n