Can Healthy Hearing help people with movement disorders?
Your brain and your ears are close friends. It seems that every few months, a new connection is made between your brain and your ears. Research is showing that untreated loss of hearing can be linked to dementia.
We encourage hearing checks every year. It is important to catch changes in hearing early so that other problems can be avoided. We’re only scratching the surface of our knowledge about the ear-brain relationship.
The brain and ears are so interconnected that a recent Scientific Reports study is based upon a link discovered by accident. This link could help improve assistive devices for people with mobility disorders and limb loss. If you’re in the area, come visit Pensacola’s best hearing center.
Brain-Computer Interfaces
BrainGate is a research group that develops brain-computer interfacing (BCIs) for its clients. These implants use nerve signals from the brain to control assistive devices, such as prosthetic legs.
BCI implants are usually placed in the motor cortex, which is the part of the brain responsible for planning to act. However, the BrainGate team was curious about how feasible it would be to collect nerve signals earlier than this.
They could use nerve signals from the brain that is responsible for the urge to act, before the planning-to act brain region. They might be able to speed up BCI response time if they do.
An Accidental Discovery
A participant in a clinical trial was unable to use his arms or legs after sustaining a spinal injury. His brain activity was recorded using fMRI during a simple movement exercise. His brain activity was detected in an area that is associated with the urge to act.
They did the same experiment using the BCI implant instead of fMRI. Surprised, the implant failed to register activity in the same area.
They discovered something similar while reviewing data from another research session. The implant detected strong signals from the same area of the urge to act when they used verbal cues.
A Study with Only One Participant
The BrainGate team found that this urge-to act area didn’t care about visual cues at all, but only about sound-based cues. To test their hypothesis, they created a new study with the BCI implant. The study had a small sample size — the same participant with spinal-cord injury — and it used alternate cues.
The urge-to-act region responded to sound-based cues but not visual cues. The planning-to-act region responded to both and had no preference.
These results were published in Scientific Reports under the title “Auditory Cues Reveal Intent Movement Information in Middle Frontal Gyrus Neuronal Ensemble Activity of a Person with Tetraplegia.”
Why it Matters
BrainGate has had some success stories. A computer cursor can be controlled by people with spinal cord injury, brainstem stroke, or ALS simply by thinking about their limb movements. They have demonstrated intuitive control of advanced prosthetic limbs in clinical research. People with paralysis also have easy access to powerful external devices.
They discovered that the urge-to act area responds to sound cues and can use this to complement the planning-to action area. BCI implants can collect movement data from two regions of the brain. Researchers hope that BCIs will one day be used to allow paralyzed limbs to move in a controlled, reliable and intuitive manner.
Healthy hearing could be an important part of this exciting puzzle.
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