Devices · Grey Matter

Devices that read from or write to the nervous system, from research probes to approved stimulators, with what they measure or deliver, their channels, whether they enter the body and their regulatory status.

- 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. - Deep brain stimulation: Deep brain stimulation is an implanted system that delivers continuous or scheduled electrical pulses through electrodes placed deep in the brain, and for epilepsy it targets a hub of the thalamus to make seizures less frequent when drugs and surgery are not options. - Layer 7 cortical interface: The Layer 7 cortical interface is Precision Neuroscience's electrode film for the surface of the brain: a sheet thinner than a hair, carrying 1,024 small electrodes, slid onto the cortex through a narrow slit in the skull, and the first part of a next-generation brain-computer interface to receive regulatory clearance. - N1 implant: The N1 implant is Neuralink's fully implanted brain-computer interface: a sealed, coin-sized unit set into the skull that records from motor cortex through flexible threads and sends decoded activity wirelessly to a computer or phone, so that a person with paralysis can move a cursor by intending to move. - Neural dust: Neural dust is the idea of reading the brain with many tiny, wireless, battery-free implants scattered through the tissue instead of one large wired array, and it is a research route toward recording from far more sites than today's implants reach. - Neuropixels: Neuropixels is a thin silicon probe that is pushed into the brain to record the spikes of hundreds of individual neurons at once along its length, and it is the standard tool for recording large populations of single cells across several brain structures in animals. - Stentrode: The Stentrode is Synchron's brain-computer interface delivered through the blood vessels: a stent carrying electrodes is threaded up from the jugular vein into a large vein lying against the motor cortex, where it records the cortex's activity without any opening in the skull. - Transcranial magnetic stimulation: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) makes neurons fire from outside the head by inducing an electric current in the cortex with a brief, strong magnetic pulse, and it is used both to probe the brain (what happens if this area is disturbed?) and to treat depression and other disorders. - Utah array: The Utah array is a small bed of rigid silicon needles, each tipped with an electrode, pressed into the cortex to record single neurons, and it is the device behind most of what is known about brain-computer interfaces in people, from the first cursor control in 2004 to the speech decoders of 2023. - Vagus nerve stimulation: Vagus nerve stimulation is an implanted device that sends regular electrical pulses into the left vagus nerve in the neck to reduce seizures, and it is used when epilepsy resists medication and surgery is not possible.