Breakthrough in Shanghai lab gives voice to thought

A group of Chinese researchers and clinical neurologists has made a new breakthrough in brain-computer interface technology, enabling 10 individuals to communicate complex Chinese sentences through their thoughts alone.

The technology, currently in clinical trials, offers new hope for patients with speech loss due to conditions such as stroke.

Collaborating scientists from Shanghai-based startup INSIDE and Huashan Hospital affiliated with Fudan University implanted electrodes into participants with epilepsy.

After an average of just 100 minutes of training, their custom-built intelligent system decoded brain activities associated with the intended speech of 54 Chinese characters in real time.

Training on those characters then enabled the system to interpret 1,951 common words correctly and generate complete Chinese sentences in under half a second, with virtually no length limit.