The results of the project to create a neural interface for completely paralyzed patients have called into question

In 2017, an article was published on Habré about a project that is dedicated to finding the possibility of communication with people who are completely paralyzed and who have no motor activity. Presumably, such people are conscious, but not even able to blink or look away.



At that time, research was being conducted under the leadership of Niels Birbaumer, an employee of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering, an organization based in Geneva. First of all, the work was devoted to the return of the world of communications of people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (it was Stephen Hawking who suffered from it). Baumer said that his team managed to create a neural interface and establish a basic communication scheme with the paralyzed. The news about this event was widely covered by the media and brought the scientist some fame. Unfortunately, it has now become known that the results of all the work are a big question. Another group of scientists could not confirm the results obtained by the Baumer team.



This work was carried out under the patronage of Germany’s largest fund, called DFG. He funded the Boomer study and after a few years decided to check the correctness of the results, and, accordingly, the justification for allocating funds for this study.



As it turned out, the results could not be confirmed in at least three cases. Researchers did not record everything that they had previously stated on the video, in addition, they could not provide all the research data for specific patients.



The DFG fund launched an investigation in 2018, after a statement by the scientist Martin Spyuler, who was unable to repeat the results of Baumer's experiments. The Foundation hired several independent researchers who were also unable to repeat the results - and this is extremely important to confirm the results of any scientific work. A panel of independent researchers said that Baumer and his colleagues rigged the results - they chose what was needed to confirm their assumptions. In some cases, important data were ignored, moreover, scientists sometimes changed them in their own interests.



Baumer in a response statement said that he accepts the results of the investigation, but insists that communication with completely paralyzed patients is possible thanks to an analysis of blood pressure and electrical activity of the brain. At the same time, the participants in the investigation cannot say with full confidence that absolutely all the results are fake. DFG representatives said that now this is not possible. However, this foundation and the scientists who participated in the investigation recommended that the scientific publication PLOS Biology withdraw both articles published by Baumer.







In their articles, the team talked about a special neural interface, which consists of a grid of electrodes worn on a person’s head. Using near infrared spectroscopy and electroencephalography, scientists have learned to measure in real time the level of oxygen in the blood and the electrical activity of the brain. When creating such a system, the main task was to interpret the reaction of the patient’s body, that is, it was necessary to understand when a person says “yes” and when “no”. To train the test subject and test the interface, the researchers used questions like “Is Paris the capital of Germany?” And “Is your husband Joachim?”



Now the fund has imposed sanctions on the guilty scientist - he was denied the right to apply for funding for his research from DFG. He also should not act as a scientific expert, checking the results of other scientific projects. He also needs to return the funds allocated by DFG for the implementation of the mentioned work.



As for the problem itself, the solution of which the project was aimed, it is quite serious. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (also known as motor neuron disease, motor neuron disease, Charcot's disease, in English-speaking countries - Lou Gehrig's disease) is a slowly progressive, incurable degenerative disease of the central nervous system in which there is a defeat of both the upper (motor cortex) and lower (front horns of the spinal cord and cranial nerve nuclei) motor neurons, which leads to paralysis and subsequent muscle atrophy.