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On January 29, the team of Xuanwu Hospital and Tsinghua University jointly announced that the world's first quadriplegic case assisted by implantable epidural electrode brain-computer interface has made a breakthrough in behavioral rehabilitation, realizing autonomous brain control to drink water.
The patient suffered a complete spinal cord injury to the cervical spine due to a car accident and had previously been in a state of quadriplegia for a long time. On October 24 last year, the team of Zhao Guoguang, President of Xuanwu Hospital, and the team of Professor Hong Bo of Tsinghua University jointly completed the clinical implantation trial of wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface NEO. In the experiment, a two-dollar-sized brain-computer interface processor was implanted into the patient's skull to successfully collect intracranial nerve signals in the sensorimotor brain region. When used at home, the external computer supplies power to the internal computer through the scalp, and receives the nerve signals in the brain and transmits them to the computer or mobile phone to realize brain-computer interface communication.
The first patient successfully achieved brain-controlled grasping through wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface
After several months of home rehabilitation training, the patient can now drive pneumatic gloves through EEG activities to achieve brain control functions such as drinking water independently, with a grasping accuracy of more than 90%. In addition, the patient's spinal cord injury clinical score and sensory evoked potential measurement improved.
At present, the second patient with spinal cord injury has normal signal reception and is undergoing home rehabilitation training.
According to the data, the clinical trial of the wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface passed the ethical review of Xuanwu Hospital and Tiantan Hospital in April and May 2023 respectively, and the clinical trial registration of international and domestic implantable medical devices was carried out.
According to the team of Xuanwu Hospital, the project has achieved two major breakthroughs.
First of all, in the process of implanting the brain-computer interface, the team embedded the internal machine in the skull and covered the electrodes on the epidural, so as to ensure the quality of intracranial signal acquisition without damaging the nerve tissue.
Second, with near-field wireless power and signal transmission, the skull-implanted body does not need to be battery-driven. "By recording and interpreting brain signals, the brain-computer interface realizes direct communication between the brain and the computer, which can help patients with ALS, spinal cord injury, epilepsy and other brain diseases to recover. ”
Professor Zhao Guoguang's team performed the first case of wireless minimally invasive
Brain-computer interface implantation surgery
According to the different signal acquisition methods, BCI technology can be divided into three types: non-invasive, semi-invasive, and invasive.
● Non-invasive brain-computer interface refers to the recording and interpretation of brain information through a wearable device attached to the scalp without invading the brain. Although this technology is safe, it has low signal quality and resolution, and is subject to interference from the skull and noise.
● Semi-invasive BCI refers to the implantation of a BCI into the cranial cavity but outside the cerebral cortex. This technique allows for high signal intensity and resolution while reducing the risk of immune response and callus.
● Invasive brain-computer interface refers to the direct implantation of electrodes into the cerebral cortex through surgery and other means, so that the highest quality neural signals can be obtained, but the cost is significantly higher than the first two, and there are high safety risks and possible complications.
Wireless minimally invasive implantation of the brain-computer interface NEO system and its in vivo machine
In the medical scene, both invasive and semi-invasive brain-computer interfaces are useful, but for investment institutions, the difficulty of commercialization will be an important factor in the selection of investment targets, and from this perspective, the advantages of semi-invasive brain-computer interfaces are greater.
Some industry insiders said that although the state strongly supports translational research related to brain science and brain-computer interfaces, brain-computer interfaces have not yet been used on a large scale as medical devices in the world, and the regulatory level still maintains a relatively rigorous attitude towards the commercial application of brain-computer interfaces as medical devices. Under the strict requirements of supervision, it is necessary to pay attention to the selection of technical routes and targets with controllable long-term safety and good implantation convenience, and find technical solutions that are safer and more certain in clinical implementation.