Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist explains how the music of Pink Floyd could help stroke victims communicate again

New research suggests Pink Floyd's greatest hits may be the key to helping stroke victims communicate again. Published this week in the journal PLOS Biology, the scientists took 29 patients who had electrodes placed directly on the surface of their brains as they underwent surgery for epilepsy.  They were then played 3 minutes of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall, and their brain activity was detected and recorded. They then took the brain signals and compared them to the recordings from the song to identify which signal was related to pitch, melody, harmony and rhythm. They they trained an artificial intelligence system to learn these links and then reconstruct the song from these learnings. While it might sound like they are singing underwater, the researchers believe that this is just due to the electrodes being placed so far apart - and if they were closer the reconstructed song would be clearer.  The hope is that this discovery could help with patients who struggle to communicate after neurological conditions such as a stroke, as well as help patients with Broca’s aphasia who struggle to find and say the right words, yet can often sing those words with no difficulty.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.