There is Neuralink and there is the mental reading company that could overcome it

Mark Jackson is Play a computer game with his mind. While reclining in bed, three blue circles appear on a laptop screen a few meters away. One becomes red: the target. Jackson has control of a white circle, he needs to guide the target without running in blue obstacles. The game is a little similar Pac-man. Except instead of a joystick, Jackson uses his thoughts to control his little white circle. To move left, think of shaking the right fist once. To move to the right, think you do it twice in a row, like a double click.

Jackson, who is 65 years old and paralyzed, is good at this game. Moves to the red circle. Becomes blue and makes a satisfactory one Ding! He hit the target. In the next round, the circles change position. He moves to the next round and others and is successful 14 out of 15 times. He has already obtained 100 percent in this game. Then again, he had some practice.

A couple of years ago, Pittsburgh surgeons have planted Jackson with an experimental interface of the cerebral or BCI. Made by startup synchronous based in New York, Jackson’s brain signals decode to perform commands on the laptops and other devices. It is one of the 10 people – six in the United States and four in Australia, who have received the synchronization system as part of an early feasibility study. In addition to the games, the BCI allows him to send text messages, write and -mail and shop online.

Jackson’s medical saga started about five years ago, when she lived in Georgia and worked for a wholesale floral company, her dream job. He thought he had pinched a nerve in the neck. But in January 2021, the doctors of Emory University told him that the diagnosis was much more serious: the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. A neurodegenerative disease, the ALS makes the nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord break, with consequent gradual loss of muscle control. Jackson’s doctor asked if he was interested in joining a clinical study by testing an ALS drug. Jackson said it was a kids game.

But in December 2022, he had lost the ability to type or raise buckets of flowers in his work and had to stop working. He moved with his brother just outside Pittsburgh. “The loss of mobility, the loss of independence that accompanies this disease,” says Jackson, “is very much to accept, it is a lot to elaborate”. He tried to remain positive even when his disease progressed. When the drug test ended in the summer of 2023, he was anxious to join another study that had the opportunity to help his Sla.

The Synchron BCI process was starting at the University of Pittsburgh. While the plant did not slow down Jackson’s progression, he could return a little of the autonomy he had lost against the disease. “I was immediately enthusiastic about this,” says Jackson.

He started the verification process in July 2023 and six weeks later Jackson was in the operating room. In a procedure of about three hours, the surgeons inserted the stroke for the first time, a tube tube thread of the size of a matchstick, in its jugular vein at the base of the neck. Using a catheter, they carefully attracted the device through the ship, beyond the ear and on the side of the head to rest against the motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls the voluntary movement. Then they inserted a small rectangular device under Jackson’s clavicle, which elaborates the brain signals and transmits them through infrared outside the body. These signs are collected by a palette -shaped receiver found on Jackson’s chest, then sent via a thread to a unit that translates them into commands. When the system is connected, a pair of green lights shine through the shirt.