美国斯坦福大学Krishna V. Shenoy团队通过脑机接口将大脑中的“笔迹”转为文字。相关论文于2021年5月12日发表在《自然》杂志上。
研究人员开发了一种皮层内的脑机接口（BCI），它使用递归神经网络解码方法，将运动皮层中神经活动的手写运动解码，并将其实时翻译为文本。使用该BCI，实验参与者（手部因脊髓损伤而瘫痪）的打字速度达到了每分钟90个字符，在线原始精度为94.1％，离线通用精度为99％以上。这些打字速度超过了任何其他BCI所报告的速度，并且可以与参与者年龄段的个人的典型智能手机打字速度相媲美（每分钟115个字符）。
最后，研究人员从理论上解释了为什么诸如笔迹之类的运动从根本上比点到点的运动更容易解码。这些结果为BCI开辟了一种新方法，并证明了在瘫痪多年后准确解码快速、灵巧运动的可行性。
据介绍，BCI可以与失去移动或说话能力的人恢复沟通。到目前为止，BCI研究的主要重点是恢复总体运动技能，例如达到并掌握或使用计算机光标进行的点击式打字。但是，高度灵巧行为（如手写或触摸打字）的快速序列可能会加快通信速度。
附：英文原文
Title: High-performance brain-to-text communication via handwriting
Author: Francis R. Willett, Donald T. Avansino, Leigh R. Hochberg, Jaimie M. Henderson, Krishna V. Shenoy
Issue&Volume: 2021-05-12
Abstract: Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) can restore communication to people who have lost the ability to move or speak. So far, a major focus of BCI research has been on restoring gross motor skills, such as reaching and grasping1,2,3,4,5 or point-and-click typing with a computer cursor6,7. However, rapid sequences of highly dexterous behaviours, such as handwriting or touch typing, might enable faster rates of communication. Here we developed an intracortical BCI that decodes attempted handwriting movements from neural activity in the motor cortex and translates it to text in real time, using a recurrent neural network decoding approach. With this BCI, our study participant, whose hand was paralysed from spinal cord injury, achieved typing speeds of 90 characters per minute with 94.1% raw accuracy online, and greater than 99% accuracy offline with a general-purpose autocorrect. To our knowledge, these typing speeds exceed those reported for any other BCI, and are comparable to typical smartphone typing speeds of individuals in the age group of our participant (115 characters per minute)8. Finally, theoretical considerations explain why temporally complex movements, such as handwriting, may be fundamentally easier to decode than point-to-point movements. Our results open a new approach for BCIs and demonstrate the feasibility of accurately decoding rapid, dexterous movements years after paralysis.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03506-2
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03506-2
Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504
官方网址：http://www.nature.com/
投稿链接：http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html
本期文章：《自然》：Online/在线发表
