在大腦中植入芯片，不需要鍵盤就可以打字啦

Could the future of office work be sitting inside a microchip smaller than a dime? Researchers from Brown University say a chip inserted into the brain can allow people to type without the need for a keyboard.

未來的辦公室工作會不會坐在一個比一角硬幣還小的芯片里?布朗大學的研究人員說，插入大腦的芯片可以讓人們不需要鍵盤就可以打字。

The implant captures brain signals associated with handwriting and turns them into text on a computer screen in real time. Like something out of science fiction, just thinking about the hand movements which produce written letters is enough for the tech to make it a reality.

這種植入物可以捕捉與手寫有關的大腦信號，并將其實時轉換為電腦屏幕上的文本。就像科幻小說里的情節(jié)一樣，只要想想手部運動產(chǎn)生的書面文字就足以讓這項技術成為現(xiàn)實。

More importantly, the technology could restore the ability to communicate for people who suffer from paralysis following an accident or other condition. The participant testing the hardware was able to type up to 90 characters a minute, more than double the previous record.

更重要的是，這項技術可以恢復那些在事故或其他情況下癱瘓的人的通訊能力。測試的參與者每分鐘最多能輸入90個字符，比之前的記錄翻了一番還多。

“An important mission of our BrainGate consortium research is to restore rapid, intuitive communication for people with severe speech or motor impairments,” says Dr. Leigh Hochberg in a university release. “Frank’s demonstration of fast, accurate neural decoding of handwriting marks an exciting new chapter in the development of clinically useful neurotechnologies.”

“我們BrainGate聯(lián)盟研究的一項重要任務是為嚴重語言或運動障礙的人恢復快速、直觀的交流。”Leigh Hochberg博士在一份大學報告中說。“Frank的快速、準確的手寫神經(jīng)解碼技術，標志著臨床有用的神經(jīng)技術的發(fā)展翻開了令人興奮的新篇章。”

It has taken the scientists several years to fine tune their technology so it can capture and interpret different brain signals. Earlier versions relied on people pointing to and clicking letters on a virtual keyboard, but they could only write about 40 characters per minute.

科學家們花了幾年時間對他們的技術進行微調(diào)，使之能夠捕捉和解釋不同的大腦信號。早期版本依賴于人們在虛擬鍵盤上指向和點擊字母，并且每分鐘只能寫40個字符。

“We want to find new ways of letting people communicate faster,” says co-author Dr. Frank Willett of Stanford University “This new system uses both the rich neural activity recorded by intracortical electrodes and the power of language models that, when applied to the neurally decoded letters, can create rapid and accurate text.”

“我們希望找到讓人們更快交流的新方法，”合著者之一、斯坦福大學的弗蘭克·威利特博士說，“這個新系統(tǒng)既利用了皮質(zhì)內(nèi)電極記錄的豐富神經(jīng)活動，又利用了語言模型的力量，當應用于經(jīng)神經(jīng)解碼的字母時，可以產(chǎn)生快速準確的文本。”

Study authors then asked their volunteer to imagine writing so the sensors could record the patterns his brain produced with each letter. The study reveals the paralyzed man could copy sentences and answer questions at a similar speed to someone of the same age typing on a smartphone.

作者讓志愿者想象寫作，這樣傳感器就可以記錄下他大腦產(chǎn)生的每一個字母的模式。這項研究顯示，癱瘓的男子可以模仿句子和回答問題，速度與同齡人在智能手機上打字的速度相似。

The findings appear in the journal Nature.

該研究結果發(fā)表在《自然》雜志上。