The first wireless commands to a computer have been demonstrated in a breakthrough for people with paralysis.
The system is able to transmit brain signals at “single-neuron resolution and in full broadband fidelity”, say researchers at Brown University in the US.
A clinical trial of the BrainGate technology involved a small transmitter that connects to a person’s brain motor cortex.
Trial participants with paralysis used the system to control a tablet computer, the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering reports.
The participants were able to achieve similar typing speeds and point-and-click accuracy as they could with wired systems.
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John Simeral, an assistant professor of engineering at Brown University: “We’ve demonstrated that this wireless system is functionally equivalent to the wired systems that have been the gold standard.
“The signals are recorded and transmitted with appropriately similar fidelity, which means we can use the same decoding algorithms we used with wired equipment.
