Having suffered a major brain stem stroke, Eric Ramsey was completely aware of everything going on in the outside world, but was unable to communicate at all.
Surgeons implanted an electrode in his brain and he learned to communicate just by thinking about what he wants to say.
The implications of Eric's story are profound... In the near future, we may be able to restore speech (and other abilities) to those who have lost them. In the long term, we might be able to extend our 'natural' abilities to do such things as adding additional memory or thinking capacity.
clipped from: www.pbs.org 