Artificial throat restores voice of ALS patient

A wearable artificial throat being tested by an ALS patient has achieved initial success, basically "restoring" the patient's voice before his vocal cord was affected by the disease, Beijing Radio and Television Station reported.

In Yi Zhe, a medical-themed documentary program on Monday, the BRTV reported that Cai Lei, a former senior executive of e-commerce giant JD who was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 2019, tried the artificial throat developed by a team from Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Due to muscle atrophy caused by the ALS, Cai's voice has become weaker and with higher pitches than before. Connecting the device at his throat, the system collected Cai's voice and "synthesized" a new voice, which Cai said had "highly reflected" his voice before he was sick. It is believed that Cai has become the world's first person to try on such an artificial throat.

The team said earlier that they have been interested in building such a device since 2016, inspired by renowned theoretical physicist and ALS patient Stephen Hawking. The device mostly uses graphene, a popular carbon-based multifunction material, and its acoustic reception device is highly sensitive in distinguishing muscle movements, esophagus vibration and voice wave, while able to resist the interference of environment noise.

When the wearer hums, the artificial throat will identify key acoustic features of the vibration, and turn it into a smooth, natural human voice using an artificial intelligent model, the team said, adding that the system has an accuracy rate of more than 90 percent in identifying daily words mumbled by a patient who had a pharyngectomy, or a throat-removal surgery.

The team said in the program that they hope to further serve those with ALS and other people who have difficulty speaking by further upgrading the wearable throat device.