Improved Brain Decoder Holds Promise for Communication in People With Aphasia

February 6, 2025 • by Marc Airhart

Restoring some language for aphasia sufferers, like Bruce Willis and a million other Americans, could involve AI.

Colorful illustration of a human brain with different colors ranging from pink to blue to purple, indicating brain activity

Brain activity like this, measured in an fMRI machine, can be used to train a brain decoder to decipher what a person is thinking about. In this latest study, UT Austin researchers have developed a method to adapt their brain decoder to new users far faster than the original training, even when the user has difficulty comprehending language. Credit: Jerry Tang/University of Texas at Austin.


Brain activity from two brains, compared

Brain activity from two people watching the same silent film. The UT Austin team developed a converter algorithm that transforms one person’s brain activity (left) into the predicted brain activity of the other person (right), which is a crucial step in adapting their brain decoder to a new subject. Credit: Jerry Tang/University of Texas at Austin.

Two scientists prepare an fMRI scanner, a large white cylinder designed to surround a human head

Jerry Tang (left) and Alex Huth (right) have demonstrated an AI-based tool that can translate a person’s thoughts into continuous text, without requiring the person to comprehend spoken words. Here they prepare the fMRI scanner to record a subject’s brain activity. Credit: Nolan Zunk/University of Texas at Austin.

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