{"id":234122,"date":"2026-03-26T23:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T04:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/brain-computer-interface-enables-rapid-communication-for-two-people-with-paralysis"},"modified":"2026-03-26T23:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T04:04:11","slug":"brain-computer-interface-enables-rapid-communication-for-two-people-with-paralysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/brain-computer-interface-enables-rapid-communication-for-two-people-with-paralysis","title":{"rendered":"Brain computer interface enables rapid communication for two people with paralysis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/brain-computer-interface-enables-rapid-communication-for-two-people-with-paralysis.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers from Brown University and Mass General Brigham have developed an implantable brain-computer interface that allowed two people with paralysis \u2014 one with ALS and one with a spinal cord injury \u2014 to communicate through rapid, accurate typing. The system uses microelectrode sensors in the motor cortex, maps letters to attempted finger movements on a QWERTY keyboard, and decodes those neural signals into text.<\/p>\n<p>In the study, one participant reached a top speed of 110 characters per minute (about 22 words per minute) with a 1.6% word error rate, and both participants were able to use the system from home after calibration with as few as 30 sentences. The results were published in Nature Neuroscience.<\/p>\n<p>This is the kind of neurotechnology that starts to close the gap between thought and communication.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Implantable device research from the BrainGate clinical trial enables communication through rapid typing for a patient with ALS and a patient with a spinal cord injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from Brown University and Mass General Brigham have developed an implantable brain-computer interface that allowed two people with paralysis \u2014 one with ALS and one with a spinal cord injury \u2014 to communicate through rapid, accurate typing. The system uses microelectrode sensors in the motor cortex, maps letters to attempted finger movements on a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":701,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}