Towards Restoration of Articulatory Movements: Functional Electrical Stimulation of Orofacial Muscles

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2019 Jul:2019:3111-3114. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2019.8857670.

Abstract

Millions of individuals suffer from impairments that significantly disrupt or completely eliminate their ability to speak. An ideal intervention would restore one's natural ability to physically produce speech. Recent progress has been made in decoding speech-related brain activity to generate synthesized speech. Our vision is to extend these recent advances toward the goal of restoring physical speech production using decoded speech-related brain activity to modulate the electrical stimulation of the orofacial musculature involved in speech. In this pilot study we take a step toward this vision by investigating the feasibility of stimulating orofacial muscles during vocalization in order to alter acoustic production. The results of our study provide necessary foundation for eventual orofacial stimulation controlled directly from decoded speech-related brain activity.

MeSH terms

  • Brain / physiology
  • Electric Stimulation*
  • Facial Muscles / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Movement*
  • Pilot Projects
  • Speech*