A new thought-reading brain implant is giving people who can’t speak a chance to communicate again. Developed by researchers at UC Berkeley, this experimental technology can convert neural activity into spoken words with a delay of just a few seconds. It’s one of the closest breakthroughs yet toward real-time thought-to-voice communication.
The system works by placing 253 electrodes on the surface of the brain, specifically targeting the motor cortex. This is the region of the brain responsible for coordinating speech. When a person silently thinks about speaking, the implant captures the brain signals involved in preparing that speech.
Then, with the help of artificial intelligence, those signals are decoded and translated into a synthetic voice streamed through a speaker. The first person to test the device was a woman named Ann, who lost the ability to speak after a stroke in 2005. Using the thought-reading brain implant, she was able to read off sentences displayed on a screen.
A study on the development, which was published in Nature Neuroscience in March, highlighted how Ann was asked to silently read sentences displayed on a screen. As she did, the AI system learned to associate specific brain activity with the words she intended to say.
The showcased results are impressive, too. The thought-reading brain implant can process brain signals every 80 milliseconds, allowing it to produce synthetic speech with only a 3-second delay. That’s a huge leap forward compared to earlier systems, which often required a full sentence to be completed and had delays of 8 seconds or more.
What makes this new model so adept is that it decodes speech in a continuous stream—word by word. This should make conversations far more fluid, the researchers say.
While the system doesn’t sound completely natural yet, researchers believe future versions will be faster, more accurate, and smoother. For people with severe paralysis or degenerative conditions, this technology could become a vital lifeline, allowing them to express themselves again without needing to type or move.
The device is essentially intercepting the signals where thought turns into speech, one of the researchers explained in a statement. Other brain implants like this have turned thoughts into text, but this is one of the most effective at turning it into speech.
Of course, there’s still plenty of work ahead for this thought-reading brain implant. However, this study proves the potential of AI in brain-based treatments, and it could fundamentally change how we think about communication and when people truly lose their voice.
