Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
Francis R Willett
Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
Neurosciences Program, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
Brian A Murphy
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States; FES Center, Rehab R&D Service, Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cleveland, United States
Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
Donald T Avansino
Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
William D Memberg
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States; FES Center, Rehab R&D Service, Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cleveland, United States
Jonathan P Miller
FES Center, Rehab R&D Service, Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cleveland, United States; Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Cleveland, United States
Robert F Kirsch
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States; FES Center, Rehab R&D Service, Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cleveland, United States
VA RR&D Center for Neurorestoration and Neurotechnology, Rehabilitation R&D Service, Providence VA Medical Center, Providence, United States; Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States; School of Engineering and Robert J. & Nandy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science, Brown University, Providence, United States
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States; FES Center, Rehab R&D Service, Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cleveland, United States
Shaul Druckmann
Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
Krishna V Shenoy
Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Bio-X Program, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Bio-X Program, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
Speaking is a sensorimotor behavior whose neural basis is difficult to study with single neuron resolution due to the scarcity of human intracortical measurements. We used electrode arrays to record from the motor cortex ‘hand knob’ in two people with tetraplegia, an area not previously implicated in speech. Neurons modulated during speaking and during non-speaking movements of the tongue, lips, and jaw. This challenges whether the conventional model of a ‘motor homunculus’ division by major body regions extends to the single-neuron scale. Spoken words and syllables could be decoded from single trials, demonstrating the potential of intracortical recordings for brain-computer interfaces to restore speech. Two neural population dynamics features previously reported for arm movements were also present during speaking: a component that was mostly invariant across initiating different words, followed by rotatory dynamics during speaking. This suggests that common neural dynamical motifs may underlie movement of arm and speech articulators.
