美發現大腦形成語言信號 讀心術或成現實
Research finds how words are formed in the brain
American scientists have discovered a way to watch words form in the human brain in a breakthrough that could one day allow those with severe disabilities to “speak”.
Using electrodes they found the area of the brain that is involved in creating the 40 or so sounds that form the English language.
They then discovered that each of these sounds has its own signal which they believe could eventually allow a computer program to read what people want to say by the power of their thoughts.
The mind-reading research was undertaken by a team from the Centre for Innovation in Neuroscience and Technology at the University of Washington.
Led by its director, Eric Leuthardt, they studied four people who suffered from severe epilepsy who each had 64 electrodes implanted into their heads.
The original reason for this was an attempt to try to find the cause of their epilepsy but Leuthardt also monitored the areas of the brain where speech is formed.
The subjects were asked to make four repeated sounds – “oo”, “ah”, “eh”, and “ee”.
The team then monitored the Wenicke’s and Broca’s areas of the brain for signals related to speech formation.
The scientists were then able to pick out the corresponding electrical signals, and while these four signals will not be enough to form sentences, further research could lead to this becoming possible.
Leuthardt told the Sunday Times: “What it shows is that the brain is not the black box that we have philosophically assumed it to be for generations past. I'm not going to say that I can fully read someone's mind. I can't. But I have evidence now that it is possible.”
The research was published in the Journal of Neural Engineering.
譯文：
美國科學家已經發現一種用來觀察話語在人腦里形成的方法，這項重大突破有望讓患有嚴重語言障礙的人“開口說話”。
研究人員利用電極發現，人腦的某個區域與產生形成英語的大約40種聲音有關。
隨后他們發現，每種聲音都有自己的信號。科學家們相信，電腦程序有可能最終讀懂這些信號，了解人們想說什么。
這項讀心術研究是由美國華盛頓大學神經系統學科技創新中心的科研小組進行的。
在負責人埃里克•魯塔德的領導下，科研小組對4名重癥癲癇病患者進行了研究。每位患者的頭部都被植入了64個電極。
這項研究的初衷是為了查明這些人患癲癇的原因，但是魯塔德還對形成語言的大腦區域進行了觀察。
研究要求試驗參與者重復發出“哦”、“啊”、“嗯”和“咦”四種聲音。
在這期間研究小組對其大腦里的韋尼克區和布羅卡區進行監控，尋找與語言形成有關的信號。
科學家隨后找到了與這些聲音相應的電信號。雖然這4種信號還不足以形成句子，但進一步的研究或許能將其變成現實。
魯塔德在《星期日泰晤士報》上說：“研究顯示，大腦并不像過去幾代人推測的那樣，它并不是一個黑匣子。我還不敢說我能完全讀懂一個人的心思，但現在我有證據可以證明這個目標并非無法實現。”
該研究成果發表在《神經工程學》雜志上。
