Newswise — The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Meeting is known for showcasing the latest research, science and technology, and this year is no exception in Los Angeles. The late-breaking abstract “An Intracortical Speech BCI for High-Performance Brain-to-Text Communication” will be shared during the Opening Session, Friday, April 21, at 5:30 pm-5:38 pm, PST.

The abstract, authored by Francis R. Willett, Chaofei Fan, Erin Kunz, Donald T. Avansino, Foram Kamdar, Leigh R. Hochber, Krishna V. Shenoy and Jaimie M. Henderson, will be presented by Jaimie Henderson, MD, the director of the Stanford program in Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery. 

Speech brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have the potential to restore rapid communication to people with paralysis by neurally decoding attempted speaking into text. “Anarthria” is a distressing condition in which a person can’t speak, despite being able to understand speech and knowing what they want to say. It’s usually caused by a brain injury, such as a stroke, or a neurological disorder, such as Parkinson’s disease or ALS.

Early demonstrations have not yet achieved accuracies high enough for communication of any sequence of words from a large vocabulary. This study participant achieved a 23.8% word error rate on a 130,000-word vocabulary and a 9.1% word error rate on a 50-word vocabulary (2.7 times fewer errors than the prior state-of-the-art speech BCI). This latest BCI decoded speech at 62 words per minute, which is 3.4 times faster than the prior record for any kind of BCI and begins to approach the speed of natural conversation (160 words per minute).

The Opening Session will begin at 5 pm and continue until 7 pm and in addition to the latest science, will feature inspirational lectures, prestigious award presentations, a special fireside chat discussing concussion in sports and comedy by Dr. Glaucomflecken.

 

About the 2023 AANS Annual Scientific Meeting:

From April 21-24, 2023, in in Los Angeles, California, neurosurgeons, neurosurgical residents, medical students, neuroscience nurses, clinical specialists, physician assistants, allied health professionals and other medical professionals will join together for the 2023 AANS Annual Scientific Meeting. The annual meeting is the largest gathering of neurosurgeons in the nation, with an emphasis on the field’s latest research and technological advances. The scientific presentations scheduled for the 2023 event represent cutting-edge examples of the incredible developments taking place within the field of neurosurgery.

 

About the AANS:

Founded in 1931 as the Harvey Cushing Society, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) is a scientific and educational association with more than 13,000 members worldwide. The AANS promotes the highest quality of patient care and advances the specialty of neurological surgery. Fellows of the AANS are board-certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada or the Mexican Council of Neurological Surgery, A.C. Neurosurgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of disorders that affect the spinal column, spinal cord, brain, nervous system and peripheral nerves.

 

 For more information, visit www.AANS.org.