New technology: Think about what you want to write - a computer writes for you

Soon it may be possible for paralyzed people to be able to write.

Through a technology called the brain-computer interface, the brain can communicate with a computer.

This is presented by researchers from, among others, Stanford University in the journal Nature. 

Based on artificial intelligence

When we try to write letters, a signal is sent out into the brain.

The researchers wanted to capture these signals in the test participant and then attached 192 electrodes to the part of the brain that controls motor skills.

The signals look different for different letters and this is where the researchers started learning a computer.

- The computer learns that the electrical impulse when, for example, you try to write the letter "a" looks a certain way, explains Max Ortiz Catalan, who is an associate professor of electrical engineering at Chalmers University of Technology and director of the Center for Bionics and Pain Research.

90 letters per minute

The researchers instructed the computer to learn the impulse behind all the letters of the English alphabet, commas, apostrophes, question marks, spaces and periods.

With the researchers' technology, the test participant was able to write up to 90 letters per minute with 94 percent dot accuracy. 

- This technology makes it possible for patients with spinal cord injuries to communicate again, says Max Ortiz Catalan.