“Several recent studies have shown the feasibility of decoding or synthesis [of] sentences of non-tonal languages, such as English (2-10) and Japanese (11), using intracranial neural recordings, such as electrocorticography (ECoG). These studies have primarily relied on decoding the spatiotemporal neural patterns associated with articulatory movements—such as those of the lips, tongue, and larynx—in the ventral sensorimotor cortex during intended speech production.” (Zhang, Lu et al. 2024, lines 23-28)
This quotation accurately acknowledges that the neocortex encodes body movements (in addition to conscious, declarative processing) to yield an electrical signal (EEG, field potential, or unit recording) that is used by a brain-computer interface to recover function in paralyzed patients. In the original experiments of Miguel Nicolelis (as summarized on his website, 2019) it was always very clear that without the participation of body movements (in his fully intact behaving monkeys) that his brain-computer-interface signal underwent severe collapse (Tehovnik et al. 2013). Even in the pioneering studies of Fetz and colleagues (Fetz 1969; Fetz and Finocchino 1972; Fetz and Baker 1973; Wyler and Burchiel 1978; Wyler et al. 1979), all of which were conducted on behaving monkeys, it was understood that body movement signals conveyed by the proprioceptors potentiated the brain-computer-interface signal and were found to be necessary for the long-term maintenance of the signal, a property that also hold true for human subjects undergoing gradual neural degeneration (and paralysis via ALS) at the motor neurons (Birbaumer 2006).
To show that even monkeys are ‘aware’ of the need for this feedback, it was observed that a monkey that had received a lesion of the proprioceptive pathways of the spinal cord would grasp his affected, limp arm with his functional arm to move the limp arm about in an attempt to potentiate the cortical brain-computer-interface signal so as to receive a reward (Wyler et al. 1979). This ‘awareness’ must now be transmitted to those using neocortical signals to restore function to paralyzed patients. In short, if there are residual movements in a paralyzed patient (whether of the vocal apparatus or the limbs), then those movements should be employed to facilitate recovery and to produce the best brain-computer interface signal to enhance communication and mobility via external devices. As appreciated by Oliver Sacks (2012), thinking and body movements are subserved by common mechanisms in the brain, as suspected by William James over one century ago (James 1890).
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