We can now add the Apple Vision Pro and Amazon Alexa-powered smart home devices to the growing list of technology that people can control with their thoughts, thanks to a brain implant called a Stentrode. Made by Synchron, the implant is designed to allow patients living with paralysis to control their digital devices using signals from their brain.
Mark using Synchron's BCI to control Apple Vision Pro.
In a new milestone, the company announced the results of its latest study at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons Monday. The study followed six patients with Synchron's brain implant during a 12-month period and concluded that no serious adverse events (meaning medical complications like blood clots or stroke) related to the Stentrode were reported.
The success of this latest trial means Synchron will be moving on to a larger study with more participants. Synchron's founding CEO Tom Oxley says this next chapter in the Stentrode's development will be about reliability, gathering more brain data and using that data to make the device more powerful, more intuitive to work with and more empowering for its users.
The Stentrode sits in a blood vessel near the brain's motor cortex, where it picks up on the user's intent to move and transmits it wirelessly to take the desired action on their digital device.
"How do you turn the device on and off with your brain? What if you're dreaming? How do you lock it?" Oxley says. "These simple things we take for granted [and] have solutions for because we use our hands have to be solved for BCI."
There's a registry on Synchron's website where people interested in participating in future studies can sign up. To see the Synchron BCI in action controlling Apple and Amazon devices, check out the video in this article. You can also check out our previous coverage of Synchron, including a demo of how the Stentrode is implanted into the brain without the need for open brain surgery and our interview with Mark, one of the first 10 people to use Synchron's BCI and who features in many of its demo videos.