Dr. Ariel Tankus wins CNS 2025 Paper of the Year by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons

The awarded paper, published in the scientific journal Neurosurgery, has demonstrated the potential for speech by a silent person using the power of thought only. It describes a study led by Dr. Ariel Tankus of Tel Aviv University's Gray School of Medicine and @Sagol School of Neuroscience and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital), along with neurosurgeon Prof. Ido Strauss of Tel Aviv University’s Gray School of Medicine and director of the Functional Neurosurgery Unit at Ichilov Hospital.

In this study, a silent participant, implanted with depth electrodes in his brain, imagined saying one of two syllables. The electrodes then transmitted the electrical signals to a computer, which decoded them, and vocalized the syllables accordingly. This study is a significant step toward developing a brain-computer interface that can replace the brain's control pathways for speech production. It thus bears an enormous potential to allow completely paralyzed individuals to communicate again with other people, at their will.