Locked-in patients tell doctors they are ‘happy’ after computer

But the new device was able to pick up the changes happening beneath the services, and read thoughts.

All four patients in the study were suffering from ALS - a progressive motor neuron disease that leads to complete destruction of the part of the nervous system responsible for movement.

They were wired up to a non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) which detected responses by measuring changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain.

To calibrate the programme, scientists asked questions which they already knew the answer to, such as You husband’s name is Joachim?

One of the patients Kerstin Wirth, 26, of Leverkusen in Germany, was diagnosed with juvenile ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and within just four years was in a completely locked-in state.

But using the new technology she was able to confirm that her mother's name was Margit and say that the still felt happy with her life.

Professor John Donoghue, Director of the Wyss Center, said: “Restoring communication for completely locked-in people is a crucial first step in the challenge to regain movement.

The technology used in the study also has broader applications that we believe could be further developed to treat and monitor people with a wide range of neuro-disorders.

The researchers said they were amazed to find that all the participants reported being happy most of the time.

“We were initially surprised at the positive responses when we questioned the four completely locked-in participants about their quality of life," added Professor Birbaumer.

“All four had accepted artificial ventilation in order to sustain their life when breathing became impossible so, in a sense, they had already chosen to live.

What we observed was as long as they received satisfactory care at home, they found their quality of life acceptable. It is for this reason, if we could make this technique widely clinically available, it would have a huge impact on the day-to-day life of people with complete locked-in syndrome.

oh shit

Bad news for Mario.

>>106984
>However if all eye movements are lost, as in the case of patients in the study, the condition is referred to as complete locked-in syndrome. Most doctors believed it was impossible for people who were effectively trapped inside themselves to contact the world outside.
Jesus christ how horrifying

I was feeling kinda shitty about myself but damn that's a sobering reminder of just how bad life could really be.

>>107023
I CAN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING

CAN'T TELL IF THIS IS TRUE OR DREAM

>>107076
Deep down inside I feel to scream

>>106984
>In one case, a family requested that the researchers ask one of the participants whether he would agree for his daughter to marry her boyfriend ‘Mario’. The answer was “No” nine times out of ten.

Comedy gold.

>>107001
yeah, can mario really be that bad?

>>107090
That one "yes" counts as permission in Mario's eyes.

>>107090
"May I marry your daughter?"

[compiling response]

"Sorry but your princess is in another castle, faggot. Fuck off."

>I'm happy, please let the doctors perform horrendously expensive therapies on me!

>>107120
Can't help but feel that if the doctors were going to fake it they'd say more than seventy percent were happy. You could be right though.

So can this be used as a lie detector, or can blood oxygen levels be consciously altered?

>>107177
they have to think about saying yes or no.

>>106984
OH shit that article isn't behind a paywall!

Pfft They did it in House MD first

> can't communicate at all
> we designed a system to read your thoughts
> the system reports you're happy and the system works

Jesus Christ How Horrifying

If I'd been trapped in my comatose body for years and someone finally figured out how to talk to me, I'd be pretty fucking happy too.

>>107077
This terrible silence stops me.

>>107557
The system can't read thoughts, it reads O2 concentrations in the brain and patterns that are associated with a known Yes response and a known No response. They can only read Yes and No thoughts, so all questions need to be answered in Yes or No.

>>107094
sounds mexican to me

If this was me, my only thoughts would be:
>please kill me
>please kill me
>please kill me

"How did you know they were happy?"

"... well they didn't leave."

>>107609
he is Italian you silly fag

>>106984
There is no bloody way they are "happy" what a load of bollocks, does anyone actually believe this?

>>111339
Prove them wrong.

>>108047
lol

>it's legal to keep people like this alive
Holy shit just let them die, why chain them to their mortal coil like that?

>>112024
Because they are happy.

>>108083
I thought he was Japanese.

>>112024
This makes perfect since in an atheist society.

If you believe there is nothing after death, then keeping vegetables alive for as long as possible has some quality of life. Death =/= going to a better place according to atheists.

Ya know I would've been all for this had I not seen johnny got his gun, and my grandfather sitting in a hospital bed struggling for life before they finally let him go... let them die, and no they probably aren't happy. Nor even really living at this point...sad but true. There's a certain point where it's just not life anymore it's just not.

>>112068
This new machine that can talk to them said they are happy the patient even said so back to the doctor. You don't speak for these people fuck off.

>>112052
To actually verify that concretely, you would need to wake one of them up, as it were, and ask them without The Machine.

>trapped inside a completely unfunctioning body
>"we made this machine to read your thoughts"
>"it says you're happy, now your family will feel too guilty to stop paying thousands of dollars a month to keep you alive"
as if the nightmarish existence of being trapped in a prison of flesh wasn't bad enough. This is like some shit from the twilight zone or black mirror

>>112063
funny how pro-life & anti-euthanasia people tend to be religious

>>107609
That would be Malio than

>>107104
>>>107090
>"May I marry your daughter?"
>[compiling response]
>Error 403!

>>112052
As long as they happy hospital can bill them, that's why dead people make poor customers. Unless you are a mortician or undertaker.

>>107120
If anyone was faking this, it'd be some all lives are precious group. That stands against any and all means of right to die methods.

>>112059
Haven't you seen how high he jumps? He's obviously Jamaican

Couldn't agree more with the people calling BS on this. There is a vested interest in it working, and there is no way to verify that it is or isn't by other means. Yes, just trust us, we have a machine that reads thoughts, uh huh. Fuck these people.

>>113066
You could verify the science behind it, but that'd require you to actually put thought into it instead of being an armchair skeptic. Kill yourself and any offspring you may have influenced.

always have a living will!!!!!

>>112116
[CAN'T WAKE UP]