Brain-computer interface company Synchron precedes Musk in human trials
Brain-computer interface company Synchron has announced the start of its first human clinical trial in the US, called the "COMMAND" study. Brain-computer interface company Synchron announced the start of its first human clinical trial in the United States, called the "COMMAND" study, ahead of Musk's human trials.
Brain-computer interface company Synchron is ahead of Musk in human trials.1Musk's brain-computer interface company Neuralink has long been an avid proponent of human clinical trials, and the tech mogul and world's richest man has mentioned more than once that the company is going to conduct human trials from 2020 to the present. In reality, however, Neuralink and Musk's dream is still a long way off, while one of their rivals, Synchron, has recently begun human clinical trials for a device called COMMAND.
Synchron, one of their competitors, has recently begun human clinical trials called COMMAND.
Yesterday, Synchron announced that it had recruited its first volunteer for the COMMAND program, which will be conducted at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. While the company didn't elaborate on the volunteer's condition, it doesn't seem too hard to guess based on the fact that the COMMAND trial is designed for patients with severe paralysis.
Last July, Synchron received regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), making it the only company in the world to have received "clearance for a clinical trial of a permanently implanted BCI" - an honor that Musk had only dreamed of. Musk's coveted honor.
From what has been announced, Synchron is also working on an implantable brain-computer interface, but unlike Musk's Neuralink, Synchron's solution, Stentrode, doesn't require drilling holes in the skull, but rather implanting electrodes into the brain through a vein. The brain. Once the electrode enters the brain through the jugular vein, it fuses with the walls of the brain's blood vessels after 14 days of cell growth.
In layman's terms, Synchron's brain-computer interface is more akin to the now well-established cardiac stenting approach.
With the help of the system, the electrical current generated in the patient's brain is routed through wires from electrodes in the chest, which are then connected to a signal processing device. In this step, Synchron's own BrainOS operating system will decode the signals read by the sensors and convert them into a universal signal. Ultimately, users will be able to control electronic devices, such as computers, using only their eyes and thoughts.
Previously, Synchron had tested the program on four volunteers, and the results were quite good - the Stentrode was well-fixed in their bodies, and the volunteers were able to keep the device running safely while using it at home, unsupervised.
In the case of Philip O'Keefe, a 62-year-old acromegaly patient whose condition had deteriorated to the point where he could barely use a mouse, but after implant surgery and initial training, he was able to move his eyeballs to easily complete operations such as sending emails and making purchases, and in December of last year, with the help of the CEO of Synchron, Inc. Twitter account to send a tweet titled "Hello World!" last December.
"The system is amazing and takes practice like learning to ride a bike, but once you start rolling, it becomes natural." That's how O'Keefe described his feelings in a statement.
Currently, Synchron is planning to further enhance the Stentrode, following their idea that brain signaling sensors should be arranged throughout the brain through blood vessels so that more signals and commands can be read, helping patients with disabilities achieve more complex operations.
While Synchron has been steadily moving forward with its plans, other brain-computer interface companies are making improvements to their own neural implants. The most notable of these is undoubtedly Neuralink, which has a lot to do with Musk's constant "bandwagon" behavior on social media.
According to the promotional video released by Neuralink in 2021, the brain implant developed by the company consists of a "small ball" containing electronics and flexible electrodes, with a width of about 50 μm, a thickness of 5 μm, and a length of about 20 mm. Once implanted, the electrodes will read brain activity by sensing or stimulating neurons, and can even theoretically "write" brain activity.
Because human trials were not possible, Neuralink's previous experiments were done on monkeys, and after implanting the chip, they tried to get a monkey to play a game through it. From the publicly available video of the experiment, when the monkey used the joystick, the chip would record its brain activity and send the data back to the computer to analyze the correspondence between its movements and brain activity. After this, the computer disables the joystick, and while the monkey still habitually uses the joystick to play the game, it is its brain that actually manipulates the game.
Musk argued that this approach could help patients control their prostheses because the principle is "no different" from a monkey playing a game.
Of course, the downside of this solution is clear: as mentioned above, the Neuralink implant would require a craniotomy to remove a coin-sized piece of skull, then implant the chip in the brain, and then use specialized surgical equipment to sew the sensors to the surface of the cerebral cortex - all with great care. All this is done while carefully avoiding the patient's blood vessels.
Neuralink has always guaranteed the safety of the procedure, but no one knew if such a "crude" implantation method would cause infections or even irreversible damage to the brain. Perhaps that's why the FDA has been slow to approve Neuralink's request for human clinical trials. At least for now, Neuralink is still limited to monkeys - and after allegations that Neuralink "mistreated" test monkeys, there's a question mark over how much longer it will be able to do so.
It's important to note that this isn't just a risk for Neuralink, but for many brain-machine interface companies, including Synchron. Any electrodes that enter the body's tissues can cause inflammation over time, and the ability to develop materials that can be implanted in the human brain for long periods of time without deteriorating or causing infections is a challenge that future brain-computer interface companies will need to overcome.
On the other hand, how to avoid moral and ethical problems with brain-computer interfaces also requires attention from tech companies. As mentioned above, programs like Neuralink can theoretically affect some of a patient's brain activity; in addition, is there a risk that a patient's raw brain data, or thoughts, which should be kept private from anyone, will be compromised in the era of brain-computer interfaces? All sorts of questions that still linger over the young technology field.
Brain-computer interface company Synchron precedes Musk in human trials2According to foreign media reports, brain-computer interface company Synchron announced the start of the first human clinical trials in the United States, called "COMMAND" research, the first COMMAND patients in New York at Mount Sinai Hospital, to participate in clinical trials. The first COMMAND patient participated in the clinical trial at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
Synchron is said to have developed a device called Stentrode to help severely paralyzed patients, and the company's goal is to enable patients to control digital devices through an intravascular brain implant.
Stentrode, which is minimally invasively implanted in the brain's motor cortex through the jugular vein, is made of a mesh material with 16 sensors that extend into the walls of the blood vessels, which in turn are connected to an electronic device in the chest that relays brain signals from the motor cortex, allowing patients to perform everyday tasks including text messaging, emailing, online shopping, and telemedicine services.
Bruce Campbell, M.D., noted that unlike other devices that require open-heart surgery, this brain-computer interface device is much less invasive.
Tom Oxley, M.D., CEO and founder of Synchron, said that the COMMAND study has advanced Synchron's technology development to the feasibility stage, advancing a solution for the 5 million people in the U.S. who suffer from paralysis.
Synchron's recent 'SWITCH clinical trial in Australia was announced last month at the American Academy of Neurology, where researchers monitored participants in the SWITCH trial for a full year, and the most recent study demonstrated that the Stentrode is safe, with participants using it in an unsupervised use of Synchron's device were also able to send text messages, shop online and manage their finances.
Brain-computer interface company Synchron preempts Musk in human trials3Synchron, a competitor to Musk's Neuralink brain-computer interface company, has announced the start of its first human clinical trial in the US, called the COMMAND study, with the first COMMAND patient taking part in the study at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. The first COMMAND patient was enrolled at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
Tom Oxley, M.D., CEO and founder of Synchron, said, "The COMMAND study advances Synchron's technology development to the feasibility stage as we prepare for our pivotal trial. Enrolling patients for the first time is an important milestone for the field as a whole as we advance a solution for the 5 million people living with paralysis in the United States."
Learn that Synchron has developed a device called Stentrode to help patients with severe paralysis. Instead of controlling a digital device with their hands, the company's goal is to allow patients to control it through a brain implant inside a blood vessel.Stentrode travels through the jugular vein to the brain. It is made of a mesh material with 16 sensors that extend into the walls of the blood vessels.Synchron's Stentrode is connected to an electronic device in the chest that relays brain signals from the motor cortex.
Bruce Campbell, M.D., noted, "Our research is exciting because other devices require open-heart surgery, and this brain-machine interface device is much less invasive. It receives electrical signals from the brain, enabling people to control computers through their minds."
In contrast, Musk's Neuralink company's device is implanted directly into the brain by a robot that resembles a computer numerical control (CNC) machine, and the device consists of a globular substance that is connected to thin hair-like flexible electrodes.
During its SWITCH clinical trial, Synchron conducted a successful human trial of four patients in Australia. bruce Campbell, who authored the study that reported on Synchron's human trial in Australia, and the researchers monitored the SWITCH trial participants for a full year. They observed that Stentrode was safe because the trial had "zero adverse events" that resulted in disability or death.
In the SWITCH trial in Australia, Stentrode was well immobilized in all four patients, who used Synchron's device unsupervised at home. Patients were also able to send text messages, shop online, and manage their finances on the Internet.2021 In December, Synchron patient Philip OKeefe tweeted the first message posted on social media through the Stentrode mind.