Everything I do comes from seeing patients
and not having an answer for how to help them.
Right now, all of us are using mobile technologies
and computers for typing and texting,
and sending messages, generating language.
Folks with locked-in syndrome
don't have any way to do that!
Gregory had brain damage.
I don't think he'll ever be able to do this.
And Dr. Melanie said, "It is rewiring his brain.
"He'll be able to do it."
It was astounding to me.
It will be real fun to see where this goes.
It's almost science fiction.
When the phone rang at eight o'clock in the morning,
and it was the hospital and they told me
I needed to get there right away.
They found out it was
a brain stem major stroke.
Gregory lost his speech.
He lost the use of his body limbs.
He was instantly paralyzed and his speech was taken.
And we were given that it was locked-in syndrome.
And I had never heard of it, didn't know anything about it,
and I remember leaving the hospital that day
not understanding at all but thinking
that Greg's body was dead but his brain was alive,
and how horrific that was.
I am 100% dependent on my caregivers.
I am bathed, I have range of motion,
I am dressed, I have to have finished with my breakfast
and wait two hours before I can be laid down
for range of motion or any physical movement.
I'm physically put into my wheelchair
with a Hoyer lift and my caregiver's help.
I am a tube feeder; no liquid or food enters my mouth.
I would be at risk of getting aspiration pneumonia.
It frustrates me when people ignore me.
I may have something to say
and they will not look me in the face or ask me
if I have something I want to say.
It frustrates me when people act like I am deaf.
They talk around me to each other but not to me.
They don't include me in on the conversations.
It frustrates me when people ask the people around me
questions that I can answer, as if I weren't there.
My name is Dr. Melanie Fried-Oken.
I am a professor at Oregon Health & Science University
in Portland, Oregon.
So we do have a full agenda for the hour today,
mostly something from every team,
so let's start with software and look at Pivotal Tracker.
Our team is unique.
We have four different teams that together
have worked for 12 years to develop
our noninvasive brain-computer interface.
I am a speech-language pathologist.
I work primarily on our brain-computer
interface research projects.
Our brain-computer interface technology is primarily
aimed at people with very severe disabilities.
Locked-in syndrome is a term that we use
to describe someone who is essentially
locked into his or her body.
The kind of classic form of locked-in syndrome
involves only eye movement or blinking.
But there's also complete LIS, where the person has lost
all of their voluntary motor function.
So even the ability to blink or to move the eyes is lost.
If you have no voluntary motor function,
you have no way to communicate with another human being.
So that's the gap that we're trying to fill.
A lot of the brain-computer interface work
is being done in engineering labs or neuroscience labs
with graduate students and researchers,
and has not been tried.
We take our work out into the community
and we work with many individuals with severe disabilities.
Hey there, Greg!
Nice to see ya!
Doin' well today?
He says, "Yes." Good,
good to hear it.
Brain-computer interface allows someone to control
a computer just using only their brainwaves.
In our system, we have an electrode cap
that holds electrodes against the scalp,
and they can watch what the system is presenting to them.
Lift his head up a little bit
so that I can slide the cap on.
Okay, are you ready to go?
Okay, so it'll be, "This is fun."
Here we go.
There's one letter presented at a time
in the middle of the screen.
So it's just flash, flash, flash, letter, letter, letter.
You're watching that stream of letters go by,
and when you see the letter you want,
you have that involuntary brain
response of, "Yes, that one."
Instead of someone moving
their hand to press the letter M,
they're looking at a screen,
and when they see the letter M,
they get a special brainwave, a surprise brainwave,
that's called the P300.
And that P300 brainwave is being taken as their keystroke.
I have tested various programs created
by the engineers of computer programmers to see
if they are computer-friendly for people like me.
The exercises I do on the computer are challenging,
and I like being challenged.
All right, nice job!
That was awesome!
The kind of general wisdom in the BCI field right now
is that it typically works for healthy users
under controlled situations, you know?
Our BCI keyboard works reliably
for most healthy people who try it.
But when we take it out into the field,
it's less likely to work.
Post One, American Legion, Portland, Oregon.
And the Gregonator, Greg Bieker out there tonight, yeah!
The pie in the sky, the dream goal
for brain-computer interface would be to allow people
with severe disabilities and communication impairments
to communicate in real time.
That's really not possible with any kind of assistive
technology for communication at this point.
Obviously, we wanna make it faster,
make it better; that's what we're working towards.
But the first goal is to make it work consistently
and reliably for the people who need it.
♪ God bless the USA ♪
I have had people be fearful to approach me.
I would want them to know that I'm not contagious.
I would want them to know it's okay to approach me and talk.
I would want them to know I have a sense of humor.
I would want people to never have to experience
what I go through daily.
Locked-in syndrome is not for sissies!
I am excited to be on board for whatever
this new technology takes us.
I'm happy to be part of the team.