The results could help people who are unable to speak communicate more easily with others. Unlike some previous systems, the new brain-computer interface does not require people to attempt to physically speak. Instead, they just have to think what they want to say.
“This is the first time we’ve managed to understand what brain activity looks like when you just think about speaking,” study co-author Erin Kunz, an electrical engineer at Stanford University, said in a statement. “For people with severe speech and motor impairments, [brain-computer interfaces] capable of decoding inner speech could help them communicate much more easily and more naturally.”