
Established in 2021 by one of Neuralink's co-creators, Elon Musk's brain-computer interface startup, Precision Neuroscience is a competitive entity in the field aiming to enable those suffering from paralysis to manoeuvre digital devices with the aid of neural signals. To decode neuron-generated messages and make them applicable to external technology, a BCI (Brain Computer Interface) is used. Precision Neuroscience recently conducted its first human clinical experiment. In addition, organisations like Synchron, Paradromics and Blackrock Neurotech have devised gadgets that can produce similar results.
Craig Mermel was surprised by the speed of the event he was witnessing in the operating room in West Virginia. He was there to watch the first-ever in-human clinical study of Precision Neuroscience's neural implant system, wherein a paper-thin electrode array was placed on a conscious patient's brain to provide the highest resolution picture of human thought ever recorded. Mermel, the president and chief product officer at Precision, said the experience was "incredibly surreal" and that he got chills. The system was developed with the goal of helping paralyzed patients operate digital devices, such as a cursor, keypad, or social media, by decoding their neural signals. The company announced a $41 million Series B in January, and hopes that future studies will allow them to gain FDA approval and help those with degenerative diseases like ALS regain some degree of communication.. Although an in-human study is a major milestone, it is only the first step in a long road to FDA approval. Mermel says, "Now the real work begins."
Dr. Benjamin Rapoport, co-founder and chief science officer at Precision, reported that a number of academic medical centers had offered to support the company's pilot clinical study. The company ultimately partnered with West Virginia University's Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, and the two organizations spent more than a year preparing for the procedures. With a career of more than 20 years in BCI technology, Rapoport stated that witnessing Precision's technology being used on a human brain for the first time was an incredibly gratifying moment for him. He was unable to express the emotion in words. Dr. Peter Konrad, chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, was the one to actually place the array onto the patient's brain during the 15-minute procedure. Two of the patients were awake during the process, allowing the Layer 7 to capture their brain activity as they spoke. Konrad said he'd never seen such an abundance of electrical activity from the brain. He termed the experience as "watching somebody think". He also pointed out the advantages of this technology, saying conventional electrodes are four millimeters wide, while Precision's array can fill 500 to 1,000 contacts on the same size. He concluded that it was like comparing black and white films with high-definition videos. Even though the patients from this study have not seen the results yet, Konrad said this technology had brilliant potential.
Precision is hoping to avoid open brain surgery with its technology, and CEO Michael Mager told CNBC in January that a surgeon should be able to slide the device in with a tiny slit in the skull, no wider than a millimeter. In comparison, companies such as Paradromics and Neuralink have designed their BCIs to be directly inserted into brain tissue. Precision is opting for the minimally invasive route, even though it means sacrificing some detail of the neural data, since that level of detail isn't needed for the functions they are aiming for. The company will be performing the procedure on two more patients soon for their pilot clinical study, and they have submitted their initial results to a scientific journal. They are hoping for full FDA clearance for their device next year, which Rapoport said would be a "huge next step." He expressed his excitement about seeing the early results, adding that it was one of those moments "when you get to sort of see something before anybody else sees it in the world."
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