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While Elon Musk’s brain-hacking start-up dealt with major legal headaches, researchers at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, Switzerland, implemented a brain implant that works on completely paralysed people.

They tested the implant on a 34-year-old man suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), who proved that commands could be made with just simple yes/no thoughts that turn into sentences.

One of his first requests was “I want a beer,” reported The Independent, alongside other perfectly reasonable but possibly unexpected wishes.

Those included asking to listen to the band Tool at a “loud” volume, getting a head massage from his mother, and ordering a curry.

Fair enough, sir:

Image: Wyss Center for Bio Neuroengineering

With no ability to move his eyes or perform voluntary muscular movements, the man could finally communicate with his caregivers and family with thought alone, composing sentences at a rate of just one character per minute by answering yes/no to each.

After being left in a locked-in state because of ALS, he had two square electrode arrays surgically implanted into his brain to facilitate communication:

It took three months of unsuccessful attempts before a configuration was achieved that allowed the patient to use brain signals to produce a binary response to a speller program, answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when presented with letters.

Three weeks later, he could produce his first sentences, and over the next year, dozens more.

What was previously thought of as relatively impossible, is now a success:

“Ours is the first study to achieve communication by someone who has no remaining voluntary movement and hence for whom the BCI is now the sole means of communication,” said Dr Jonas Zimmermann, a senior neuroscientist at the Wyss Center.

“This study answers a long-standing question about whether people with complete locked-in syndrome – who have lost all voluntary muscle control, including movement of the eyes or mouth – also lose the ability of their brain to generate commands for communication.”

Besides the more zany requests, the man also asked for his head to be propped up properly when guests were visiting, and to be fed a variety of food through his tubes.

That included goulash soup and sweet pea soup, as well as “curry with potato then Bolognese and potato soup”.

Heartwarmingly, he was also able to send his four-year-old son a message: “I love my cool son.”

[source:independent]