For the first time, a paralyzed man is able to send a tweet using his brain only. Thanks to a tiny brain implant of a size of a paperclip.
History has been made as a paralyzed Australian man has become the first person to tweet a message using only direct thought thanks to a tiny brain implant the size of a paperclip. The message has been described as the “first direct-thought tweet”.
The tiny brain implant, that picks up his brain signals, was able to read the 62-year-old man’s thoughts and translate it into a text.
Philip tweeted ‘Hello World’ using the brain implant. Philip has been suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) since 2015. Due to the condition, he is unable to move his upper limbs. But the microchip implant enabled him to think of the short tweet: “No need for keystrokes or voices. I created this tweet just by thinking about it. #helloworldbci” The interface that made the translation successful was created by Synchron, a California-based brain-computer interface company. They specialise in allowing patients to carry out tasks on a computer by just using their minds.
Philip became one of the patients implanted with the company’s Synchron’s Stentrode brain-computer interface this year. The tweet made Philip the first person in the world to successfully post a social media message directly through thought. Following the successful tweet, Philip said he was astonished by the technology the first time he heard about it.
