On January 30, the official website of Tsinghua University announced that the brain-computer interface research team of the school's School of Medicine and Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University jointly conducted the world's first wireless minimally invasive brain-computer interface clinical trial on October 24, 2023. This patient who suffered a spinal cord injury and quadriplegia for 14 years due to a car accident has achieved brain control functions such as drinking water independently after three months of training, with a grasping accuracy rate of more than 90%.
Hong Bo, a professor at Tsinghua University School of Medicine, said in an interview with a science and technology reporter that the implementation of brain-computer interfaces is divided into non-invasive, invasive and semi-invasive.
The Tsinghua University team used a semi-invasive, minimally invasive technique in which electrodes the size of a coin are implanted into the meninges between the skull and the cerebral cortex, closer to the neurons but without direct contact with the neuronal cells. The advantage is that there is no risk of nerve cell damage, and with wireless power and communication, high signal strength and resolution can be obtained, and there is no need for batteries in the body, which reduces the risk of immune response and infection.
Hong Bo said that Tsinghua University has adopted a semi-invasive technology route to enable it to serve clinical patients faster and help it. The system they developed just sits on the outside of the meninges without damaging brain cells. For surgeons, this is a minimally invasive surgery, not a craniotomy in the strict sense, and patients can go home within 10 days after surgery, which is very safe.
It should be noted that compared to other implanted brain-computer interfaces in the world, our brain-computer interface is the first one so far that you can go home after surgery in a short time. This solution can benefit more patients, as opposed to a fully invasive solution that requires a stay in the hospital after surgery. Hong Bo emphasized.