Innovations & technologies

Scientists have found a way to decode brain signals into speech

You don’t have to think about it: when you speak, your brain sends signals to your lips, tongue, jaw, and larynx, which work together to produce the intended sounds.

Now scientists in San Francisco say they’ve tapped these brain signals to create a device capable of spitting out complete phrases, like “Don’t do Charlie’s dirty dishes” and “Critical equipment needs proper maintenance.”

The research is a step toward a system that would be able to help severely paralyzed people speak—and, maybe one day, consumer gadgets that let anyone send a text straight from the brain.

A team led by neurosurgeon Edward Chang at the University of California, San Francisco, recorded from the brains of five people with epilepsy, who were already undergoing brain surgery, as they spoke from a list of 100 phrases.

When Chang’s team subsequently fed the signals to a computer model of the human vocal system, it generated synthesized speech that was about half intelligible.