Paradromics' wireless BCI gets its first-in-human implant at the University of Michigan

Neurosurgeons at University of Michigan Health completed the first-in-human implantation of Paradromics' Connexus brain-computer interface in a Michigan woman who struggles to speak due to motor neuron disease. The device records from 421 microelectrodes capturing individual neurons, sending signals wirelessly through a small chest transceiver to an external receiver. It opens the Connect-One Early Feasibility Study, which will assess long-term safety and whether the BCI can restore communication through synthesized text and speech.

Why it matters

Paradromics has been the best-funded BCI challenger without a human implant; that asterisk is now gone, and the field has a second US company running a long-term implant trial alongside Neuralink — whose 26th patient and first transdural procedure landed weeks earlier. Fully wireless operation and single-neuron bandwidth are the two specs the speech-restoration market will be won on, and Connexus now gets to prove both in a patient rather than a deck.

What to watch

First communication-performance data from the trial, and additional Connect-One sites and enrollments.