PMID-17234696[0] Brain-computer interfaces: communication and restoration of movement in paralysis
- A large gap between the promises of invasive animal and human BCI preparations and the clinical reality characterizes the literature: while intact monkeys learn to execute more or less complex upper limb movements with spike patterns from motor brain regions alone without concomitant peripheral motor activity usually after extensive training, clinical applications in human diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and paralysis from stroke or spinal cord lesions show only limited success, with the exception of verbal communication in paralysed and locked-in patients.
- attempts to train completely locked-in patients with BCI communication after entering the complete locked-in state with no remaining eye movement failed (!)
- We propose that a lack of contingencies between goal directed thoughts and intentions may be at the heart of this problem. I'm not sure if 'contingencies' (something that can happen, but is generally not anticipated); should there not be a strong causal relationship between brain activity and prosthetic control?
- still, the focus of this article are non-invasive BMIs.
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