A high-performance neuroprosthesis for speech decoding and avatar control.

Speech neuroprostheses have the potential to restore communication to people living with paralysis, but naturalistic speed and expressivity are elusive. Here we use high-density surface recordings of the speech cortex in a clinical-trial participant with severe limb and vocal paralysis to achieve high-performance real-time decoding across three complementary speech-related output modalities: text, speech audio and facial-avatar animation. We trained and evaluated deep-learning models using neural data collected as the participant attempted to silently speak sentences.