Minimal invasion, quick recovery: Chinese brain implant helps paralyzed man recover motor skills

A Chinese clinical team has implanted a wireless processor into the skull of a paralyzed man, significantly recovering his motor skills, including drinking a bottle of water on his own.

The team announced the outcome on Tuesday, calling it a breakthrough in the country's brain-computer interface (BCI) device, a frontier technology that may assist the rehabilitation of patients with brain diseases and injuries, and even expand the human brain's processing capability in the future.

The patient, who received the implant surgery in a clinical trial on October 24, 2023, had suffered a complete spinal cord injury caused by a car accident. He had been quadriplegic, or paralyzed in all four limbs, for 14 years.

The brain surgeons from Xuanwu Hospital implanted the wireless BCI processor in two coins' size into the participant's skull and successfully acquired the nerve signals in his brain region that control the sensory and motor functions.

After three months of home training, the patient is now capable of fetching a bottle of water on his own via an air-filled glove driven by brain waves, with his grasping accuracy rate exceeding 90 percent.

The patient also showed improvement in clinical scores for spinal cord injury and sensory-evoked potential measurements, according to the neurosurgeons in the trial.

The implantable device, called Neural Electronic Opportunity (NEO), has been developed by a group of scientists from Tsinghua University. Its internal part is powered by the external part through the scalp, and it receives neural signals before transmitting them to a computer or cell phone.

It consists of an internal and an external part. The internal part is powered by the external one through the scalp, which will then kick off the system to transmit the patient's neural signals to a computer or cell phone.

"We designed an air-filled glove for the patient this time. As the patient's hands cannot move, the system will 'translate' his instruction and direct the glove for some actions such as drinking water and having a meal," Hong Bo, a professor from Tsinghua's School of Medicine, told CGTN.

NEO vs. 'Telepathy'

The U.S. brain-chip startup Neuralink has implanted a device called "Telepathy" in a human for the first time, the company's founder Elon Musk said on Monday.

"Initial results show promising neuron spike detection," Musk said in a post on the social media platform X.

Compared with the invasive Telepathy technology, NEO adopts a minimally-invasive method.

The full-invasive design will reach richer brain signals and help patients to do more things, said Hong, while it bears risks with larger damage.

"Its complicated system may require longer recovery time and more technical support," Hong added.

Unlike the "Telepathy" technology, NEO's electrodes are embedded between the skull and the dura mater, a thick external membrane that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.

These electrodes can ensure the signal quality without damaging the neural tissues, and the patient can leave hospital in 7 to 10 days after implantation, said Hong.

Second NEO-implanted patient in rehabilitation

Last December, the second NEO implantation was conducted in a spinal cord injury patient at Beijing Tiantan Hospital.

"The patient is even younger, in his thirties. I think our system can help him regain hope and strength in life," said Hong.

The patient is now undergoing rehabilitation at home, who is expected to be able to drink and eat by himself soon, Hong said.

"We are also developing a system, which will be soon realized to help him turn pages with brain signals, therefore he can read by himself and keep learning."

Hong said he hope the technology will be upgraded into a solution in the future for more diseases and can address more problems when combined with other treatment, such as movement disorders, cognitive disorders and even more complex mental problems like depression and Alzheimer's.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has vowed to support future industries that include BCI, metaverse and humanoid robots.

Zhao Guoguang, a professor at Xuanwu Hospital, said that BCI technology will hopefully help patients with brain diseases such as spinal cord injury and epilepsy to recover, and offers the possibility of realizing brain-computer intelligence fusion.

"But there is still a certain way to go for BCI's large-scale application, and future research will be conducted on device stability and functionality," Zhao added.

(With input from Xinhua)