Devices monitor brain activity and Artificial Intelligence reconstructs the words a person hears. This breakthrough harnesses the power of speech synthesizers and artificial intelligence. It could lead to new ways for computers to communicate directly with the brain.

People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or recovering from stroke could regain their ability to communicate with the outside world.

They plan to test more complicated words and sentences next, and they want to run the same tests on brain signals emitted when a person speaks or imagines speaking. Ultimately, they hope their system could be part of an implant, similar to those worn by some epilepsy patients, that translates the wearer's thoughts directly into words.