Implant Watch

2025

Neuralink reports more than a dozen implanted patients, and trials now run in several countries, including the US, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates.

2024-09

Blindsight, Neuralink's vision prosthesis for the visual cortex, receives FDA 'Breakthrough Device' designation: accelerated review for restoring sight to the blind.

2024-08

An ALS patient controls an Apple Vision Pro with the Synchron Stentrode. Brain-computer interface meets consumer hardware.

2024-01

First Neuralink implant in a human: Noland Arbaugh, paralyzed from the neck down, controls chess and a cursor by thought alone just weeks later.

2023-08

Research teams at Stanford and San Francisco decode speech from brain signals at up to ~78 words per minute, close to the pace of natural conversation.

2022-07

Synchron becomes the first company of the modern BCI generation to implant a Stentrode in a US patient, going in through the jugular vein with no open-skull surgery.

2021-04

Neuralink shows 'MindPong': a macaque plays Pong by thought alone, using a 1,024-electrode implant.

2019-07

Neuralink unveils flexible thread electrodes and its implantation robot, the approach that later becomes the N1/R1 system.

2012

BrainGate2: a paralyzed patient raises a coffee cup to her mouth with a thought-controlled robotic arm, an iconic moment of BCI research.

2004

The first BrainGate patient receives a 96-channel Utah array and moves a computer cursor by thought.

1998

The first brain-computer interface in a human: Phil Kennedy's electrode lets a locked-in patient control a cursor with just two channels.