"What's striking to me about this study is that it's nicely showing, for the first time in human patients, that you can use these signals to control a robot of importance for activities of daily living for a patient," says Andrew Jackson, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University. The researchers say that algorithmic improvements in picking up patterns of activity in the brain and interpreting those patterns were key to the advance.
The goal of the pilot clinical trial is to develop technologies that can restore the ability to communicate and move and to give independence to people with neurological disease or injury. So far, seven patients have enrolled in the trial. The two participants in this latest work both suffered from brain-stem strokes that left them unable to speak or move their limbs. At the time of the study, one patient had the implant for five months, the other for more than five years.
The longevity of the implants demonstrates that the device can pick up usable signals from the brain for years, a point of concern in the field. "When you put something into the brain, there's a reaction to the presence of that device," says Donoghue. Cells are damaged or displaced by the electrodes, and the brain can form scar tissue around them. But "it doesn't seem that the reaction of the brain is a barrier to recording," says Donoghue.
Still, the signal deteriorated over time. "Even though they are recording signals five years after the array was put in, the signals aren't that stable day to day," says Jackson. He points out that the jellylike tissue of the brain moves within our skull, and a rigid, fixed implant may force the brain to deform around it. "If the signals are changing day to day, would
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