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Spoken communication is a basic human function. Loss of the ability to speak can be devastating. Stroke or neurodegenerative conditions such amyotrophic lateral sclerosis can result in dysfunction or paralysis of vocal structures that produce speech. Assistive devices used to date are laborious, slow, and error prone. This research used an investigational device that can decode speech from brain activity in persons without speech impairment and tested the device in a patient with anarthria and spastic quadriparesis caused by a brainstem stroke.
A high-density multielectrode array was implanted subdurally over the area of the sensorimotor cortex that controls speech. While the patient attempted to say individual words from a vocabulary set of…