2018 Nov 26 – Brain-computer interfaces decode and translate brain electrical activity into useful control signals for computing devices, aiming at providing assistance to people with severe motor disabilities. The latest publication from the clinical trial BrainGate2 illustrates one of the proceedings in the development of this technology: challenging but general control of a commercial tablet was achieved by three participants with tetraplegia (two of whom were diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and were dependent on ventilators, and a third with tetraplegia due to spinal cord injury) who had either one or two multielectrode arrays implanted in the motor cortex (4×4 mm, electrode length 1.0-1.5 mm). This invasive technique allows precise recordings from single neurons.
