World's first wireless brain-computer interface is successfully tested on the human brain

The first wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) system is not only giving people with paralysis the ability to type on computer screens with their minds, but the innovation is also giving them freedom to do so anywhere. Traditional BCIs are tethered to a large transmitter with long cables, but a team from Brown University has cut the cords and replaced them with a small transmitter that sits atop the user's head. The redesigned equipment is just two inches in diameter and connects to an electrode array within the brain's motor cortex by means of the same port used by wired systems. The trials, dubbed BrainGate,' showed two men paralyzed by spinal injuries were able to type and click on a tablet just by thinking of the action, and did so with similar point-and-click accuracy and typing speeds as those with a wired system. A participant in the BrainGate clinical trial uses wireless transmitters that replace the cables normally used to transmit signals from sensors inside the brain.