A locked-in man has been able to communicate in sentences by thought alone

The future might already be here. In a world-first, the man was able to ask for soup, beer, and even talk about his son for the first time since becoming completely paralyzed. Using an approach called 'Neurofeedback', which is different from the electrodes-method championed by Elon Musk's Neuralink, Niels Birbaumer and Ujwal Chaudhary found a way for the man to express complete sentences. Jessica Hamzelou discovers what implications this discovery could have for other patients unable to communicate and beyond.