"Before a car crash in 2008 left her paralysed from the neck down, Nancy Smith enjoyed playing the piano. Years later, Smith started making music again, thanks to an implant that recorded and analysed her brain activity. When she imagined playing an on-screen keyboard, her brain-computer interface (BCI) translated her thoughts into keystrokes - and simple melodies, such as 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star', rang out."
"But there was a twist. For Smith, it seemed as if the piano played itself. "It felt like the keys just automatically hit themselves without me thinking about it," she said at the time. "It just seemed like it knew the tune, and it just did it on its own." Smith's BCI system, implanted as part of a clinical trial, trained on her brain signals as she imagined playing the keyboard."
Nancy Smith was paralysed from the neck down after a 2008 car crash but enjoyed playing piano. Years later an implanted device recorded and analysed her brain activity so that imagining playing an on-screen keyboard translated into keystrokes and simple melodies. She experienced the output as if the piano played itself. The implanted system trained on her brain signals and detected her intention to play hundreds of milliseconds before conscious attempt. About 90 people have received BCIs over two decades to control computers, robotic arms or synthetic speech. Recording motor-cortex signals during imagined movement can be decoded into device commands. An extra implant in the posterior parietal cortex captured intention and pre-motor planning; dual implants may improve prosthetic performance.
Read at Nature
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