Abstract: Invasive neural interfaces to the brain have been investigated in humans for nearly two decades as a potential way for people with quadriplegia to use computers, yet no high-bandwidth interface appears to be ready for commercial (non-investigational) use. This talk describes the MouthPad^, a fully wireless intra-oral wearable which fits in the mouth like a retainer and enables people with severe hand impairments to control a computer using head and tongue movements to control the pointing device of a computer. The MouthPad^ is designed for, and currently in use by, dozens of people with intact head and tongue control but severe hand impairments due to spinal cord injury, stroke, ALS and other causes. We demonstrate the pointing and clicking performance of two dozen MouthPad^ users against state-of-the-art invasive brain-computer interface studies. Next, we review published studies and MouthPad^ data showing that intra-oral sensing using electropalatography techniques can sense very quiet "whisper" speech. Together with the existing mouse functionality, this provides an avenue for the MouthPad^ to add keyboard functionality to provide a complete computer interface. Finally, we discuss areas for future R&D in intra-oral interfaces for restoration of computer use and health applications. Altogether, presently demonstrated functionality and promising research directions suggest that the mouth is a rich, largely untapped, avenue for “human I/O”.
Bio: Suraj Gowda received a BS (2010), MS (2012) and PhD (2015) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley with dissertation research in brain-computer interfaces. From 2015-2018, he was a Research Scientist at Fitbit and developed various wearable-based physiological sensing systems. In 2018, he joined iota Biosciences, an electroceuticals company, as one of the first engineers. From 2018-2023, he helped develop various implantable neural recording and stimulation systems based on the “neural dust” concept that originated at Berkeley, played a leadership role in scaling the company from a handful of employees to over 150, and contributed throughout to the development of iota’s first FDA-approved investigational device. He is currently the Chief Science Officer of Augmental which makes the MouthPad^ to enable people with hand impairments to use digital devices.
