A man who cannot move his arms or hands has used his thoughts to write a computer screen. The man has been paralyzed the neck down almost a decade. Scientists Stanford University in the USA implanted two tiny sensors the man's brain. The scientists gave this method two names - "brain-to-text" and "mindwriting". The man wants to remain anonymous, so scientists have called him T5. He became paralyzed suffering a spinal cord injury ten years ago. The implants have allowed T5 to use his mind to write. He can write 90 characters ( 18 words) minute. This is five words slower than the average person writing a text message a smartphone.
The mindwriting system is very simple, but it involved a lot advanced technology. Scientists asked T5 to imagine holding a pen and then writing a sentence a paper. The sensors in T5's brain detected the activity his brain as he imagined writing. A computer decoded this activity text on a screen. The scientists used a special algorithm to do this. Professor Jaimie Henderson, a Stanford University researcher, hopes this research could help millions paralyzed people, and those who have lost the ability to speak, to write again. He said: "The goal is to restore their ability to communicate text." This technology may one day help anyone to write the speed of thought.
