Lee Miller vividly recalls the day in 2021 when he met a woman who had lost the function of her vocal cords. In hoarse, whispering tones she explained how her voice had been instrumental to her vocation. Losing it, she said, undercut her life’s purpose. Her words were faint, but the lesson was powerful.

“Our voice is so important to our sense of identity and empowerment,” said Miller, a professor of neurobiology, physiology and behavior in the University of California, Davis College of Biological Sciences, a professor of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery at the UC Davis School of Medicine and technical director of the Center for Mind and Brain.

Now, Miller is working to restore original voices to those who have lost them — based partly on adapting technology for interpreting gestures and controlling robotic limbs.

Every year, nearly 1 million people worldwide are diagnosed with head and neck cancer. Many of them lose their ability to speak intelligibly due to surgical removal of — or radiation damage to — the larynx, mouth and tongue. These people can learn to speak again using devices that emit artificial sounds, which they can shape into words. But their new voices are often weak, mechanical or distressingly unfamiliar.

Miller and his collaborators are developing a system that could one day restore a person’s unique, original voice. 

Read the full article here: https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/restoring-voices-and-identity-neuroengineering