Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have used Neuropixels probes to map out how neurons in the human brain work together to think about and produce words before speaking. They found separate groups of neurons dedicated to speaking and listening, shedding light on the complex cognitive steps involved in speech production and opening up possibilities for treating speech and language disorders. The study's findings could lead to advancements in artificial prosthetics for synthetic speech, benefiting those with neurological disorders, and also pave the way for brain-machine interfaces for synthetic speech.
Researchers have used advanced Neuropixels probes to uncover neurons in the brain that can predict speech sounds before they are spoken, shedding light on the pre-verbal planning of speech. This breakthrough could lead to the development of speech prosthetics and improved treatments for language disorders, offering insights into the brain's language production capabilities and potential therapies for speech and language impairments. The study, published in Nature, demonstrates the intricate neural circuitry involved in speech production and the possibility of predicting spoken words before they are articulated, paving the way for artificial prosthetics and brain-machine interfaces for synthetic speech.
Researchers used ultrahigh-density microelectrode arrays to obtain single-neuronal recordings from the prefrontal cortex of participants during natural speech production. They found that the firing activities of many neurons were explained by the constituent phonemes of the word before utterance, and some neurons were selectively tuned to the planned production of specific phonemes. These neurons reliably predicted the phonetic composition of upcoming words before utterance and were largely distinct from those involved in perception. Additionally, subsets of neurons encoded information about the arrangement and segmentation of phonemes into distinct syllables, providing insights into the basic cellular elements of speech production in humans.
