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 computerprogram 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 correspondingelectrical 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.


美国科学家已经发现一种用来观察话语在人脑里形成的方法，这项重大突破有望让患有严重语言障碍的人"开口说话"。

研究人员利用电极发现，人脑的某个区域与产生形成英语的大约40种声音有关。

随后他们发现，每种声音都有自己的信号。科学家们相信，电脑程序有可能最终读懂这些信号，了解人们想说什么。


这项读心术研究是由美国华盛顿大学神经系统学科技创新中心的科研小组进行的。
在负责人埃里克•鲁塔德的领导下，科研小组对4名重症癫痫病患者进行了研究。每位患者的头部都被植入了64个电极。

这项研究的初衷是为了查明这些人患癫痫的原因，但是鲁塔德还对形成语言的大脑区域进行了观察。

研究要求试验参与者重复发出"哦"、"啊"、"嗯"和"咦"四种声音。
在这期间研究小组对其大脑里的韦尼克区和布罗卡区进行监控，寻找与语言形成有关的信号。

科学家随后找到了与这些声音相应的电信号。虽然这4种信号还不足以形成句子，但进一步的研究或许能将其变成现实。

鲁塔德在《星期日泰晤士报》上说："研究显示，大脑并不像过去几代人推测的那样，它并不是一个黑匣子。我还不敢说我能完全读懂一个人的心思，但现在我有证据可以证明这个目标并非无法实现。"

该研究成果发表在《神经工程学》杂志上。

• severe [si´viə] a.严厉的；苛刻的 (初中英语单词)
• computer [kəm´pju:tə] n.计算机；电子计算器 (初中英语单词)
• program [´prəugræm] n.说明v.为...安排节目 (初中英语单词)
• research [ri´sə:tʃ] n.&vi.调查；探究；研究 (初中英语单词)
• director [di´rektə] n.指导者；....长；导演 (初中英语单词)
• journal [´dʒə:nəl] n.日记；日报；杂志 (初中英语单词)
• studied [´stʌdid] a.故意的；有计划的 (高中英语单词)
• repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
• related [ri´leitid] a.叙述的；有联系的 (高中英语单词)
• electrical [i´lektrikəl] a.用电的；与电有关的 (高中英语单词)
• engineering [,endʒi´niəriŋ] n.工程技术；工程学 (高中英语单词)
• eventually [i´ventʃuəli] ad.最后，终于 (英语四级单词)
• corresponding [,kɔri´spɔndiŋ] a.符合的；相当的 (英语四级单词)
• innovation [,inə´veiʃən] n.改革；革新；创新 (英语六级单词)