Connexus · Grey Matter

Connexus is Paradromics's fully implanted brain-computer interface, designed for the highest data rate of the current implants: a coin-sized module on the cortex pushes hundreds of fine microwires into it, and the recordings travel under the skin to a transceiver in the chest that sends them out wirelessly.

Connexus. Connexus is Paradromics's fully implanted brain-computer interface, designed for the highest data rate of the current implants: a coin-sized module on the cortex pushes hundreds of fine microwires into it, and the recordings travel under the skin to a transceiver in the chest that sends them out wirelessly.

Each cortical module carries 421 microwire electrodes, thinner than 40 µm and about 1.5 mm long, inserted together into the cortex in under a second by a spring-loaded inserter. The electronics in the module amplify and digitise the signals, a lead runs to the chest unit, and the system is built to take up to four modules. Its first application is communication: decoding attempted speech in people who cannot speak because of paralysis.

It went into a person first for minutes. In May 2025 a module was placed in a patient's cortex during epilepsy surgery, recorded, and was removed about ten minutes later, a test of insertion and signal in human tissue.

The long-term study has begun. The US regulator approved the Connect-One study in November 2025, the first approval for a fully implanted BCI aimed at restoring speech, and the first participant was implanted in June 2026, with follow-up planned for years.

It bets on electrode count and spikes. Penetrating microwires read single-neuron activity, like the Utah array, at a higher density, and preclinical tests reported information rates above 200 bits per second.

Questions: Why do implant studies such as Connect-One follow participants for years? The main unknowns of a permanent brain implant appear over time: whether the tissue reaction slowly degrades the signal, whether hardware fails, and whether late infections or other problems emerge. Connect-One plans follow-up of six years, so a participant agrees to years of visits and recordings as well as to the surgery. Long follow-up is also where the questions of support, upgrades and what happens if the company changes course become concrete, which is why reviews ask that they be settled in the consent from the start. What is distinctive about Paradromics's Connexus implant? Connexus is built for data rate: each coin-sized cortical module drives 421 microwires, each thinner than 40 µm and about 1.5 mm long, into the cortex at once, and the system takes up to four modules. The signals are digitised in the module, carried under the skin to a transceiver in the chest and sent out wirelessly, and preclinical tests reported more than 200 bits per second. Its first target is speech, and the Connect-One study, approved in November 2025, implanted its first participant in June 2026.