Implants are becoming more sophisticated—and are attracting commercial interest
The first time he used his BCI, implanted in November 2018, Johnson moved a cursor around a computer screen.
Johnson is one of an estimated 35 people who have had a BCI implanted long-term in their brain.
Bringing a BCI to market will entail transforming a bespoke technology, road-tested in only a small number of people, into a product that can be manufactured, implanted and used at scale.
Like most people who have received BCIs since, his cognition was intact.
In part, this is because researchers began to implant multiple BCIs in different brain areas of the user and devised new ways to identify useful signals.
One approach is to implant electrodes that directly stimulate the muscles of a person's own limbs and have the BCI directly control these.
In early BCI work, participants could move a cursor around a computer screen by imagining their hand moving, and then imagining grasping to 'click' letters-offering a way to achieve communication.
Degray has had a functional BCI in his brain for nearly 6 years, and is a veteran of 18 studies by Shenoy's group.
The team of researchers gained consent from the man's family to implant a BCI and tried asking him to imagine movements to use his brain activity to choose letters on a screen.
Blackrock Neurotech's existing devices have been a mainstay of clinical research for 18 years, and it wants to market a BCI system within a year, according to chairman Florian Solzbacher.