Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella

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1,490 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 27 Jun

Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe · The Skeptics Guide #827 - May 15 2021 podcast

That's one thing to take into consideration. matched

So they're giving themselves the best chance of success by using an invasive procedure for the electrodes. matched

We've talked before several times about what the other options are. matched

You know, squishy electrodes, intravascular electrodes get close to the brain, but not having to cut through anything. matched

So that, you know, be interesting to see if we could reproduce this with with any of those less invasive options. matched

The other thing is, so what they're interpreting here is the motor cortex, which is even though you think, oh, it's language, it's writing, it's letters, it's but it's interpreting the movements. matched

And the motor cortex is one that's a good thing to go after because there's somatotopic mapping. matched

In other words, like the physical layout of the motor cortex correlates with the parts of the body. matched

There's no homunculus in the language cortex, right? matched

Interpreting the language cortex is going to be far more difficult than interpreting the motor cortex. matched

So by having the subject imagine that they're writing letters is brilliant because that just puts the language into the motor cortex where it could be much more easily deciphered. matched

They also are trying to figure out what kinds of movements are easier to decipher. matched

And they said that this study and theoretical considerations explain why this type of temporally complex movements might be easier to interpret for the software to interpret. matched

The other thing is there's only 24 letters. matched

So whenever you have a finite number of options, that also makes it much easier on the computer. matched

It just has to pick the best match of the 24 and not an open-ended match of millions of possible targets. matched

You know what I mean? matched

Yeah. matched

So, but none of that matters. matched

The end result is this is a method, you know, getting people to imagine moving in order to imagine writing. matched

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