Optrode

Neuroscientist here.. I'm not remotely an expert on locked in syndrome, but I do agree that the "only spinal nerves were blocked" explanation doesn't make a ton of sense, since there are muscles in the face that are controlled by cranial nerves, which would have allowed him to communicate.

I think a more likely explanation is the source of the commands: eye movements are not controlled by the same brain circuits as the rest of the body. There are a variety of specialized eye movement centers in the midbrain and brainstem, which bypass many of the normal circuits for control of body movement. Eye movements are also not blocked by the muscular paralysis that accompanies REM sleep (hence why it's called Rapid Eye Movement sleep). I suspect that whatever caused OP's locked in syndrome probably mainly affected the cortex, or possibly thalamocortical circuits. Just guessing there.

Generally speaking, the "default" in human development is female. Given no male or female specific hormones, an individual will develop as female in most ways.

I think the House patient had androgen insensitivity syndrome rather than 5-alpha reductase deficiency.

Taste receptors in your tongue and mouth detect sweetness (presence of sugars) sourness (acidity), bitterness (wide range of chemicals, mainly plant toxins), saltiness (sodium), and umami (presence of amino acids / protein). Everything else is detected by your nose. It's different from smelling things in the outside world, though: Smelling things happens when you are breathing in air through your nose. When you eat things, each chew / sip/ swallow sends a plume of air laden with odor chemicals from the food shooting up the back of your throat and into your nose.

Your brain can actually tell the difference between "thing I am smelling because I breathed it in from the outside air" and "thing I am smelling from what is in my mouth" (based on the timing of your breathing in / out), so it knows to associate the smells coming up the back of your throat with the food in your mouth, hence why it's so hard to tell mouth-food-smells apart from taste.

It's also amazing how the way we interpret tastes can be determined by the associated smells. If you taste slightly acidic (i.e. sour) water, like a mild vinegar solution, by itself then it tastes spoiled / bad / wrong. But add a citrus-y smell and it just tastes fruity, even if there's no sweetness. Your brain is hardwired to perceive acidity as spoilage, unless it's accompanied by smells indicative of a "known good" food.

Are the devices you're working on intended for use across a relatively large cortical area with topographic organization (e.g. M1), or are you also designing them with an eye towards areas where denser recordings might be required due to a lack of a well defined spatial map?

To what extent have considerations for how the data will be processed and used influenced your design process? E.g. the choice of multiple independent multitrodes (as with some more traditional designs for high channel count implants that consist of many independent tetrodes), or linear arrays, or dense arrays like the neuropixel. How strongly do you prioritize dense coverage (at single-neuron resolution) of a given volume, as opposed to getting multi-unit activity plus occasional isolated units across a larger volume?

More generally, what's special or new about your design?

Lastly, I'm curious, exactly how much exposure have you personally had to actual experimental ephys work?