Can a Kickstarter headset decipher the brain waves of 'locked-in' patients?

Loredana Paglialonga leans across her father's prone body and whispers in his ear: "Spinta, Papi, spinta" ("Push Daddy, push"). It is impossible to tell whether Anselmo Paglialonga, a former major in the Italian carabinieri, has heard. Paralysed from head to toe with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Anselmo is completely "locked in". Unable to speak or open his eyes, his only hope of communicating is via a state-of-the-art neuroheadset attached to his scalp. Designed by Emotiv Systems, a Californian neuroengineering company, the Epoc headset purports to give users the power to control objects with their thoughts and was a succès fou on Kickstarter, where users stumped up $1.6m to fund its development – 16 times Emotiv's original target. Indeed right now, I am told, the 14 marble-sized electrodes in the Epoc's plastic clip-on frame are monitoring the EEG signals from Anselmo's brain and sending them wirelessly to a control unit. By analysing those signals using a machine-learning algorithm, BrainControl, a Sienna-based developer, claims to be able to distinguish Anselmo's thoughts and intentions from other brain noise and use those signals to operate a cursor on a tablet computer.