California-based Cognixion is launching a clinical trial to allow paralyzed patients with speech disorders the ability to communicate without an invasive brain implant. The trials will be conducted with a modified version of the Apple Vision Pro headset. Startup Cognixion announced today that it is launching a clinical trial of its wearable brain-computer interface technology integrated with the Apple Vision Pro to help paralyzed people with speech disorders communicate with their thoughts. Cognixion is one of several companies, including Elon Musk's Neuralink, that is developing a brain-computer interface, or BCI, a system that captures brain signals and translates them into commands to control external devices. While Neuralink and others are working on implants that are surgically placed in the head, Cognixion's technology is noninvasive.

In October 2019, pioneering neurotech startup Cognixion launched a turn-key, non-invasive artificial intelligence (AI) brain computer interface solution for healthcare that enables the speech impaired to noninvasively communicate their thoughts. It was a traumatic personal experience with his mother that triggered Andreas Forsland to startup the AI neurotech company a little over half a decade prior. The California sun was just starting to set in the horizon as Andreas Forsland rushed to the intensive care unit in Santa Barbara where his elderly mother was sedated, intubated and on life-support in 2012. The prognosis by the attending physician was grim--his mother was in septic shock due to advanced pneumonia, and was rapidly approaching kidney failure. "I hope you have your mother's affairs in order," advised the doctor to Forsland. "She is not going to make it."