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AI brain implant turns paralysed woman’s thoughts into speech

01 April 2025 16:32 (UTC +04:00)

A brain implant using artificial intelligence was able to turn a paralysed woman's thoughts into speech almost simultaneously, US researchers have said, APA reports citing AFP.

Though still at the experimental stage, the latest achievement using an implant linking brains and computers raised hopes that these devices could allow people who have lost the ability to communicate to regain their voice.

The California-based team of researchers had previously used a brain-computer interface (BCI) to decode the thoughts of Ann, a 47-year-old with quadriplegia, and translate them into speech.

However, there was an eight-second delay between her thoughts and the speech being read aloud by a computer, meaning a flowing conversation was still out of reach for Ann.

But the team's new model, revealed in the journal Nature Neuroscience, turned Ann's thoughts into a version of her old speaking voice in 80-millisecond increments.

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