Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD, still remembers a patient at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) who experienced a devastating brainstem stroke that left her unable to move or speak. The patient was cared for by Aneesh Singhal, MBBS, MD, then a resident, and Bruce Price, MD.
Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD
After the stroke, the patient required full-time care and assistance with even the most basic daily activities, losing not only her physical abilities but also much of her independence. She communicated by looking at letters on a board and then looking “up” if the person she was communicating with said the correct letter aloud.
A decade later, she was recruited to a clinical trial led by Hochberg at MGH called BrainGate, for which the team placed a new, investigational brain-computer interface into her brain with the hope of helping her regain more of her ability to communicate, and with it, some of her independence.
An implantable brain-computer interface (iBCI) is a device that uses electrodes placed directly into (or onto) the brain to record neural activity in real time, allowing a person to control an external computer or device using only their intent to move, or intent to speak.
“Soon after the device implant, she was able to control cursors on the computer screen—and later, a robotic arm," Hochberg recalls. "Toward the end of the trial—after using the computer for communication and the robot arm to demonstrate her control of the environment, we were chatting, and she said that she wanted to use the robot arm to take a drink.”
“She just thought about using her own hand, and in a very early demonstration of her using the BrainGate system to control a large robotic arm, she took a sip of a cinnamon latte. It was the first time in nearly 15 years she was able to take that drink solely of her own volition.” She received international recognition, including her and Hochberg being featured on CBS’ 60 Minutes.
That simple act of taking a sip not only captured the promise of brain-computer interfaces, but also the years of research it took to reach that moment.
Since then, the multi-institutional BrainGate team (coordinated at the Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery in the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute) and other research teams have continued to refine the implantable BCI technology, moving from bulky lab setups to smaller, more precise systems that can decode neural activity patterns from the brain with increasing accuracy.
While this technology is extremely promising for individuals with paralysis, every person’s brain injury, anatomy, and goals are different, creating a challenge to design one device that works well for many patients. Bringing this technology to market would be time-intensive and costly – but the potential benefit is clear.
So, after years of advancing the science of implantable BCIs, Hochberg and colleagues created a collaboration to move this field forward faster.
From Academia to Industry
Multiple teams around the world are working to develop effective iBCI systems. Since Hochberg and his team performed the first successful implant in the early 2000s, continued federally and philanthropically supported work in academia substantially de-risked the field for industry, creating the opportunity for multiple new companies to push the field forward.
And while academia and industry may seem like separate worlds, they are more closely aligned than you think. In reality, one cannot thrive without the other, especially in medicine, where academic research sparks a new discovery and industry carries that discovery forward, shaping it into a viable product that can be used by patients everywhere.
“We want to help the industry that is designing and developing these products to do so as efficiently as possible,” says Hochberg. “We can share what we have learned over the past two decades on how to do these trials, how to engage with and support our participants, and how to think carefully about testing the safety and efficacy of these devices.”
Despite all the innovation happening across academia and industry, the path to commercialization of a novel class of medical devices faced numerous barriers. Hochberg and his team set out to change that.
“To further the field, we at Mass General Brigham convened the iBCI Collaborative Community (iBCI-CC), which was chartered in 2024 and is the first FDA- participating Collaborative Community in the clinical neurosciences.
The iBCI-CC consists of people with lived experience of paralysis, clinicians, engineers, and other scientists from academic institutions, leaders of private sector companies, government regulatory and research agencies, patient support foundations and more. All of these critical stakeholders are working together to share their time and insights.
The group works to accelerate the development of iBCI devices, ensuring that the latest discoveries in the lab can be quickly and safely translated into better products for patients. In addition, the Collaborative Community tackles critical issues concerning interoperability of BCI components, ethics of neural data use and sharing, and public education about implantable BCIs.
Bailey McGuire
“One of MGB AI’s central roles is to bridge academic research and product development, responsibly translating innovation into clinical practice in ways that are meaningful to patients,” said Bailey McGuire, Senior Program Manager at MGB AI.
“Convening the iBCI Collaborative Community reflects our role as a neutral, trusted hub — bringing together academia, industry, regulators, and people with lived experience to accelerate progress that is ethical, and centered around patient benefit.”
“Our ability to convene this [Collaborative Community] at MGB, with the additional support of MGB AI is really a credit to how nimble we can be in order to push such an important field of translational science forward,” said Hochberg. The iBCI-CC's full-time Program Manager at Mass General Brigham, Jessica Kelemen, MBA, was previously a BCI researcher with BrainGate.
Hochberg and his collaborators have also started the world’s first Brain Computer Interface Clinic at MGB in the Neuroscience Institute with the goal of using iBCI technology to restore communication, mobility and independence to patients with neurologic disease or injury.
As researchers, clinicians, engineers, and regulators continue to collaborate, what once seemed like science fiction is steadily becoming a reality — one sip of a cinnamon latte, one thought, one breakthrough at a time.
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