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Technology-assisted mind-reading is inching closer to reality, with advances that could help those unable to communicate on their own. According to research presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, scientists can determine what vowel and consonants a person is thinking of by recording activity from the surface of the brain. The system, which has about a 50-to-70% accuracy rate, could one day be used as a neural prosthesis for people with severe paralysis, translating their thoughts into actions on a computer or prosthetic limb.

Gerwin Schalk and colleagues at the Wadsworth Center, in Albany, NY, used a technology called electrocorticography (ECoG), in which a sheet of electrodes is laid directly on the surface of a patient's brain. The procedure is currently used to locate the source of seizures in patients with severe epilepsy that is resistant to drugs. Neuroscientists take advantage of the unparalleled access to the human brain during the test--which can last for days--by asking these patients to participate in experiments.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24279/