Wheelchair Controlled by Thought

macduffman writes "New Scientist reports on another development in interfacing with the central nervous system. The system 'eavesdrops' on signals sent from the brain to the larynx, so even people who lack the muscular control to vocalize a command can operate it. The potential applications of this technology are as varied as human imagination, among them: allowing a person who has lost speech capability to vocalize again." From the article:"The wheelchair could help people with spinal injuries, or neurological problems like cerebral palsy or motor neurone disease, operate computers and other equipment despite serious problems with muscle control. The system will work providing a person can still control their larynx, or 'voice box,' which may be the case even if the lack the muscle coordination necessary to produce coherent speech."

Comments

Re:What about the mouth?

[greg_barton]

How much information can you convey using just your larynx?

Well, how much information do you really need to drive a wheelchair?

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Not much. I'm sure there are four discernible signals to the larynx, probably more. Just a quick guess, but you could probably detect the following sequences of long/short "uh" sounds:

short short (uh uh)
short long (uh uuuuh)
long short (uuuuh uh)
long long (uuuuh uuuuh)

There's four signals.