A model wearing the team’s cap.
Non-invasive caps look like the newest tool that could allow completely paralysed people to communicate with the outside world. An international team of researchers led by Niels Birbaumer of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, Switzerland have just published a paper in PLOS Biology detailing their success in communicating with four people with amyotrophiclateral sclerosis , a degenerative motor neuron disease that eventually leaves patients completely paralysed.
The four patients in the study were what is considered completely locked in, unable to move even their eyes voluntarily. Yet with the system designed by Birbaumer and his team, they were able to answer easy “yes” and “no” questions simply by thinking the answers, delivering correct responses seven times out of 10.
