Long-term independent use of an intracortical brain-computer interface for speech and cursor control

Abstract Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can provide naturalistic communication and digital access to people with severe paralysis by decoding neural activity associated with attempted speech and movement. Recent work has demonstrated highly accurate intracortical BCIs for speech and cursor control, but two critical capabilities needed for practical viability were unmet: independent at-home operation without researcher assistance, and reliable long-term performance supporting accurate speech and cursor decoding. Here, we demonstrate the independent and near-daily use of a multimodal BCI with novel brain-to-text speech and computer cursor decoders by a man with paralysis and severe dysarthria due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Over nearly two years, the participant used the BCI for more than 3,800 cumulative hours to maintain rich interpersonal communication with his family and friends, independently control his personal computer, and sustain full-time employment – despite being paralyzed. He communicated 183,060 sentences – totaling 1,960,163 words – at an average rate of 56.1 words per minute. He labeled 92.3% of sentences as being decoded at least mostly correctly. In formal quantifications of performance where he was asked to say words presented on a screen, attempted speech was consistently decoded with over 99% word accuracy (125,000 word vocabulary). The participant also used the speech BCI as keyboard input and the cursor BCI as mouse input to control his personal computer, enabling him to send text messages, emails, and to browse the internet. These results demonstrate that intracortical BCIs have the potential to support independent use in the home, marking a critical step toward practical assistive technology for people with severe motor impairment. Competing Interest Statement Stavisky is an inventor on intellectual property owned by Stanford University that has been licensed to Blackrock Neurotech and Neuralink Corp. Wairagkar, Stavisky, Card, and Brandman have patent applications related to speech BCI owned by the Regents of the University of California including IP that has been licensed to the neurotechnology industry. Stavisky is an advisor to Sonera. Brandman was a surgical consultant to Paradromics Inc. at the time of data collection, and is currently an advisor to Globus Medical. The MGH Translational Research Center has a clinical research support agreement with Neuralink, Synchron, Axoft, Precision Neuro, and Reach Neuro, for which LRH provides consultative input. Mass General Brigham (MGB) is convening the Implantable Brain-Computer Interface Collaborative Community (iBCI-CC); charitable gift agreements to MGB, including those received to date from Paradromics, Synchron, Precision Neuro, Neuralink, and Blackrock Neurotech, support the iBCI-CC, for which LRH provides effort. Footnotes ↵* Co-senior authors