Niels Birbaumer (born 11 May 1945) is an Austrian academic who served as a professor at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

until 2019.

Research career

In 2017, Birbaumer's study claimed that a brain-computer interface (BCI) device, applied via an electrode cap, enabled four ALS patients to communicate binary responses. This drew considerable attention due to its implications for quality of life. However, the study's replicability was questioned, leading to a

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...

(DFG) investigation, which found the research data incomplete and the results flawed. As a result, Birbaumer's work was retracted, his funding revoked, and he was dismissed from the university. He relocated to Italy. Despite the controversy, Birbaumer and his colleague Chaudhary received public support from several scientists. Notably, the BCI technology, which was first demonstrated successfully in a tetraplegic patient in 2006, was applied in Birbaumer's research to a patient without any voluntary muscle control for the first time. The BCI was implanted in 2019 into the brain of a 34-year-old man with locked-in syndrome. After several trials, researchers decoded "yes" or "no" signals into sentences. The study, which spanned 462 days, was meticulously documented. Seward Rutkove, Chair of Neurology at

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and one of the founding members of Beth Israel Lahey Health. It was formed out of the 1996 merger of Beth Israel Hospital (f ...

, affirmed the BCI's efficacy but questioned its practicality due to cost and limited applicability. In March 2022, Birbaumer published a new study in Nature Communications that builds on his prior work. Birbaumer and Chaudhary also claimed to have won lawsuits supporting the integrity of their PLOS report, showcasing the use of a BCI in a patient devoid of voluntary muscle control. In April 2022, DFG and Birbaumer settled the legal dispute.

Selected Publications

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References

{{reflist 1945 births Living people Austrian neuroscientists University of Vienna alumni Academic staff of the University of Tübingen Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Pennsylvania State University faculty Academic staff of the University of Padua Academic staff of the University of Trento