On January 29, Professor Zhao Guoguang’s team from Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University and Professor Hong Bo’s team from Tsinghua University School of Medicine held a summary meeting on the progress of clinical trials of wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interfaces, announcing that the world’s first implantable epidural electrode brain-computer interface has made breakthrough progress in the behavioral ability of patients with quadriplegia caused by cervical spinal cord injury.
Wireless minimally invasive implantable brain-computer interface NEO system and its in-vivo machine
Professor Zhao Guoguang’s team from Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University performed the first wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface implantation surgery
The first patient to receive a brain-computer interface processor implanted into the brain was a 54-year-old male who suffered complete spinal cord injury at the cervical spine caused by a car accident (ASIA grade A). He had been a quadriplegic for a long time. On October 24, 2023, Professor Zhao Guoguang's team from Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University and Professor Hong Bo's team from Tsinghua University School of Medicine jointly completed the first clinical implantation trial of the wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface NEO (Neural Electronic Opportunity). A brain-computer interface processor the size of two coins was implanted into the skull of a patient with high paraplegia through the operation of a neurosurgeon, and successfully collected intracranial nerve signals in the sensorimotor brain area. The patient was discharged home 10 days after the operation. When used at home, the external machine supplies power to the internal machine through the scalp, receives nerve signals from the brain, and transmits them to a computer or mobile phone to achieve brain-computer interface communication.
The first high-level paraplegic patient successfully achieved brain-controlled grasping through a wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface after implanting an epidural chip in the brain.
After three months of home rehabilitation training, the patient can now drive pneumatic gloves through brain electrical activity to realize brain-controlled functions such as drinking water independently, with a grasping accuracy of over 90%. Patients with spinal cord injury showed improvements in ASIA clinical scores and sensory evoked potential measurements.
Different from the technology of brain-computer interface company Neuralink's first product called "Telepathy", this project has achieved two major breakthroughs in wireless minimally invasiveness. On the one hand, it implants the brain-computer interface NEO, burying the internal machine in the skull, and covering the electrodes in the epidural mater, which ensures the quality of intracranial signals without damaging the nervous tissue; on the other hand, it uses near-field wireless power supply and signal transmission, and the internal machine implanted in the skull does not require batteries. The clinical trial of this wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface passed the review of Xuanwu Hospital in April 2023, the first operation was performed in October, and international and domestic implantable medical device clinical trial registrations were conducted (NCT05920174, Shanghai Medical Device Preparation 20230175).
Brain-computer interface achieves direct communication between the brain and computer by recording and interpreting brain signals. On the one hand, it can help patients with brain diseases such as ALS, spinal cord injury, and epilepsy recover; on the other hand, it is expected to realize brain-computer fusion intelligence and directly expand the information processing capabilities of the human brain, which has broad application prospects.
Team introduction
Professor Zhao Guoguang’s team
Professor Zhao Guoguang's team has been engaged in the application research of brain-computer interface earlier in China. Since 2017, it has jointly carried out the world's first RCT clinical registration study on brain-computer interface spinal cord injury in conjunction with Academician Miguel. Leading China's first phase III clinical project of implantable brain-computer interface clinical devices for epilepsy, the number of implantable brain-computer interfaces and closed-loop stimulation surgical devices currently being jointly developed and verified reaches 6. Due to his contribution in the fields of neurosurgery and brain-computer interface, Professor Zhao Guoguang was selected as a "Beijing Scholar" and also received the "Huanao Scholar Award" in the field of brain-computer interface. He is the only clinician in China to win this award.
Professor Hong Bo’s team
Professor Hong Bo’s team has long been conducting research on brain-computer interface principles, algorithms and clinical translation. In 2015, Professor Gao Xiaorong and Gao Shangkai's team achieved an information transmission rate of 319 bits/minute in the scalp EEG steady-state evoked potential brain-computer interface; in 2021, Professor Hong Bo's team achieved an equivalent information transmission rate of 20 bits/minute in the wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface in preclinical research, both exceeding the highest level of similar international brain-computer interfaces at that time.