From CNBC, February 18:
- Synchron is part of an emerging crop of companies testing technology in the brain-computer interface industry.
- The system is implanted through the blood vessels and allows patients to operate technology using only their minds.
- “It helps them engage in ways that we take for granted,” Synchron CEO Tom Oxley said.
In a Brooklyn lab stuffed with 3D printers and a makeshift pickleball court, employees at a brain interface startup called Synchron are working on technology designed to transform daily life for people with paralysis.
The Synchron Switch is implanted through the blood vessels to allow people with no or very limited physical mobility to operate technology such as cursors and smart home devices using their mind. So far, the nascent technology has been used on three patients in the U.S. and four in Australia.
“I’ve seen moments between patient and partner, or patient and spouse, where it’s incredibly joyful and empowering to have regained an ability to be a little bit more independent than before,” Synchron CEO Tom Oxley told CNBC in an interview. “It helps them engage in ways that we take for granted.”
Founded in 2012, Synchron is part of the burgeoning brain-computer interface, or BCI, industry. A BCI is a system that deciphers brain signals and translates them into commands for external technologies. Perhaps the best-known name in the space is Neuralink, thanks to the high profile of founder Elon Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter.
But Musk isn’t the only tech billionaire wagering on the eventual transition of BCI from radical science experiment to flourishing medical business. In December, Synchron announced a $75 million financing round that included funding from the investment firms of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
‘More scalable’
In August 2020, the Food and Drug Administration granted Synchron the Breakthrough Device designation, which is for medical devices that have the potential to provide improved treatment for debilitating or life-threatening conditions. The following year, Synchron became the first company to receive an Investigational Device Exemption from the FDA to conduct trials of a permanently implantable BCI in human patients....
....MUCH MORE
The city of Chicago should probably keep an eye on this. There are neighborhoods, Austin, Garfield Park, Englewood, where you will see paralyzed young men out and about in their mobility chairs and you realize that even though it is the killings that make the headlines the fact is the wounds and injuries are awfully grievous and affect many more people.
If interested we have a few dozen posts on Mind- Machine interfaces including on the work of Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, M.D., PhD and his laboratory at Duke University Medical Center.
"Disruptions: Brain Computer Interfaces Inch Closer to Mainstream"
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
—Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future (revised edition, 1973)
- Here's The Most Advanced Human Brain-to-Brain Interface
Monkey Steers Wheelchair With It's Little Monkey Mind
Oh Great, Now Our Brains Can Get Hacked
I knew this was going to happen. Knew it. Afraid to say it, sound like crazy person, but knew it.
- "Microsoft wants to patent mind control" (MSFT)
- (Quantum Computer Maker) D-Wave Founder's New Startup Combines AI, Robots, and Monkeys in Exo-Suits
- More Than You Might Want To Know About Elon Musk's Neuralink
- Musk's Mind-Machine Interface, Neuralink, Reports Progress: Monkeys Now Playing Pong
- Questions America Wants Answered: Would Elon Musk's Neuralink Solve All of Accounting’s Problems?
- DARPA: "Six Paths to the Nonsurgical Future of Brain-Machine Interfaces"
And many, many more.
