February 2025

NEUROSCIENCES

STUDY MAPS NEW BRAIN REGIONS BEHIND INTENDED SPEECH

A vital first step in one day treating aphasia with brain computer interface technology​

  • Broca’s aphasia is caused by damage to the frontal lobe, leaves patients unable to say what they intend to say
  • First study to identify regions outside the frontal lobe that encode the intent to speak
  • Critical for technology to avoid decoding a patient’s thoughts that are not intended to be spoken aloud

CHICAGO --- Imagine seeing a furry, four-legged animal that meows. Mentally, you know what it is, but the word “cat” is stuck on the tip of your tongue.
This phenomenon, known as Broca’s aphasia or expressive aphasia, is a language disorder that affects a person’s ability to speak or write. While the current go-to treatment is speech therapy, scientists at Northwestern University are working toward a different, possibly more effective treatment: using a brain computer interface (BCI) to convert brain signals into spoken words.

The first step in this process is determining where in the brain the BCI should record from to decode someone’s intended speech.

Currently, BCI devices are only used on individuals with paralysis from ALS or stroke in the brainstem, which leaves them unable to move or communicate. In these patients, BCIs record signals from the frontal lobe. But Broca’s aphasia, which most often affects people after a stroke or brain tumor, results from damage to the frontal lobe of the brain, where speech production and parts of language are processed. So, to help patients with Broca’s aphasia, scientists would likely need to record signals from other areas of the brain.

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This article was originally published in Northwestern Now

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