Study tests whether ALS patient’s brain signals can control smart-home devices

BALTIMORE (Aging Untold) — A man diagnosed with ALS more than a decade ago is participating in a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins Medicine testing a brain-computer interface, or BCI, that allows patients to control smart-home devices using only their brain signals.

Tim Evans and his wife, Dee, received his ALS diagnosis on Valentine’s Day, 2014. The disease has since severely impacted his speech and movement.

“ALS has no cure,” Tim Evans said.

When the opportunity arose to join the research study, he chose to participate.

How the technology works

The BCI is an implanted device that reads electrical signals generated by the brain and transmits them to a computer, which then executes the intended command.

“The ALS person, just remember that they have paralysis of the muscles, but their brain is still able to generate signals and think — so what the BCI is doing is it’s actually interpreting those signals — those electrical signals — and they’re sending it to a computer, which can perform the command," Dr. Rhea Rogers, a board-certified physician and Aging Untold expert, said.

Early results

Researchers are testing whether Tim Evans can control smart home devices — including lights and a television — without moving or speaking. The BCI achieved 90 percent accuracy rate and maintained that performance over three months without retraining.

Rogers said clinical trials like this carry weight beyond the individual patient.

“New technology, we’re having a better understanding of what’s going on with the body — and surgery comes with a risk, but you have to weigh the risk of doing nothing or trying to get something out of it," Rogers said.

Impact on daily life

For Tim and Dee Evans, who have been married for nearly 40 years, the technology carries personal significance beyond its scientific implications.

“It improves the quality of life. Rather than relying on somebody to do it for you, he can still do it for himself,” Dee Evans said.

Tim Evans said his approach to the diagnosis and the trial is straightforward.

“Make the best of it,” he said.