| China is borrowing a page from science fiction to try and restore the ability to speak for patients with brain damage through an implant that picks up on the electric signals zapping through neurons. It has been several years since US researchers first helped paralyzed patients speak again by decoding their neural signals, a faster and more direct method than the eye-tracking tech Stephen Hawking famously used. But the Chinese language – with tens of thousands of commonly used characters and four tones that alter a word's meaning – poses unique challenges. Shanghai NeuroXess Technology says it has solved the problem. In a recent experiment, a 43-year-old epilepsy patient was able to communicate basic sentences in Chinese through a screen by just thinking about the words. Thanks to a device implanted in her brain, the patient was able to "talk" at a rate of about 40 words per minute, interact with a large language model and generate text commands to operate a robotic arm to pick up items or even play a game of rock, paper, scissors.
 A demonstration of the patient's thoughts decoded into the Chinese characters for "Nice to meet you." Source: NeuroXess NeuroXess is working on what's known as brain-computer interface, or BCI, a complex system integrating both hardware and software that builds a direct line between human brains and computers. Speech isn't the only human skill the technology can facilitate. NeuroXess says it can also decode the brain's signals for movement, translating and sending to the computer instructions that would otherwise go to the hand. In an experiment, an epilepsy patient was able to control software on a tablet with her mind, allowing her to browse social media and shopping apps as well as turn the hospital room's lights and television on and off. Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Phoenix Peng reckons that his company is about two to three years behind Elon Musk's Neuralink, perhaps the best-known company working on BCI. While NeuroXess has collected clinical data from about 50 patients, all were short-term experiments spanning as little as an hour to a month at most before its device was removed. By comparison, the first of three patients to receive Neuralink's implant, a quadriplegic, has lived with it for a year. Currently, NeuroXess' device is also physically tethered to a wire. To connect with the computer system, patients must first undergo surgery where a piece of their skull is removed to place a thin sheet of electrodes – think tiny spikes that detect brain waves – on the brain. The electrodes are connected to a chip that then sits on the patients' heads and stays there until it is removed in a second operation. NeuroXess plans to test the device on 10 more patients this year. The company is focusing its development efforts on optimizing its technology to implant more electrodes, reduce the size of the device and make it wireless. It is also in talks over conducting animal and human studies in the US. The ultimate goal of BCI, according to Peng, is to create a broader pathway for human and artificial intelligence to interact beyond the aging technology of the keyboard and mouse. – Amber Tong | 
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