An intriguing recent report in New Scientist details efforts to develop a kind of portable mind reader to help people with severe locked-in syndrome communicate with the outside world.
The terminology gets a little tricky, but basically locked-in syndrome describes a state in which the patient has no motor control — including breathing or speaking — but has relatively intact cognitive functions, and possibly limited eye movement. Patients are able to hear and think, but not communicate. They’re locked in their own bodies.
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In recent years, neurologists and technicians have had some success using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to monitor specific brain activity and establish limited communication with locked-in patients — the ability to answer a simple yes/no question, for instance. Even such modest gains can make a huge difference, allowing patients to indicate if something hurts, or even what TV show they want to watch.
But fMRI scanners typically require a dedicated laboratory setting and are unavailable to the vast majority of patients. Two research teams — one in Canada and another in Austria — are hoping to remedy the situation by developing portable devices that could be used in smaller hospitals and homes.
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The devices both use electrode caps and vibrating dermal patches to help locked-in patients communicate. The vibrating patches are places on the arms or wrists and the patient is asked to concentrate on one or other other, to indicate “yes” or “no.” It’s hoped that the tactile stimulation system will prove more accurate — and more portable — than existing EEG techniques for locked-in syndrome.
The system may also be able to help identify patients with some capacity for communication, but who have been previously diagnosed as being in a wholly vegetative state.
via New Scientist