Brain-computer interface has broad prospects: three technical paths are explored in parallel to accelerate the move from laboratory to clinic

Brain-computer interface is a technical system that establishes a direct information path between the brain and external devices. It converts the user's movement, language or sensory intentions into device control instructions by collecting and decoding neural activities; some systems can also input electrical stimulation or sensory feedback to the nervous system, forming a two-way closed loop.

In recent years, good news about brain-computer interfaces has come one after another in China: In certain cases, a patient with complete spinal cord injury recovered from complete paralysis to incomplete injury and achieved independent walking with the assistance of a brace one year after being implanted with "Beinao No. 1"; the first over 100-channel invasive brain-computer interface started a GCP (Good Clinical Practice) registered clinical trial...

When will brain-computer interface benefit more patients? What changes will the future bring to human society? What areas should we focus on in the future?

Three technical paths are being explored in parallel, accelerating from the laboratory to the clinic.

According to the electrode positions and methods used to collect brain signals, brain-computer interfaces can be divided into three types: non-invasive (electrodes placed outside the scalp), semi-invasive (electrodes placed epidural or subdural, but not penetrating into the brain parenchyma), and invasive (electrodes placed inside the brain). In recent years, three domestic technical paths have been advancing hand in hand, accelerating from the laboratory to the clinic.

The Brain-Computer Interaction and Human-Computer Integration Haihe Laboratory (hereinafter referred to as the "Brain-Computer Haihe Laboratory"), located in Tianjin Binhai High-tech Zone and built on the basis of Tianjin University, has developed more than 30 "magical" medical device lineage products through continuous research.

"The non-invasive brain-computer interface collects EEG signals directly from the surface of the scalp through external equipment such as EEG caps. It is more secure and applicable to a wider range of people and scenarios." Ni Guangjian, executive deputy director of the Brain-Computer Haihe Laboratory, told reporters that so far, the "Shen Gong Series" has been implemented in the fields of rehabilitation medicine, psychiatry, neurosurgery, audio-visual diagnosis and treatment, etc., benefiting thousands of patients. For example, the "Shen Gong-Shen Er" auditory intelligence assessment system can extract the brain's discharge waveform, directly "read" the brain's response to sound, and help doctors adjust cochlear implants and hearing aids to the most suitable "channel", allowing patients to change from "hearing" to "clearly hearing"; the "Shen Gong - Shen Peng" hydrocephalus rapid and accurate diagnosis system has shortened the diagnosis time of hydrocephalus from 2-3 days to 30 minutes, and the misdiagnosis rate has also dropped significantly.

In May last year, a team of neurosurgery experts led by Zhao Guoguang, president of Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, and Duan Wanru, chief physician, simultaneously implanted the semi-invasive brain-computer interface "Beinao No. 1" and the sequential spinal cord electrical stimulation system for Zhiming (pseudonym), who suffered severe spinal cord injury at T12-L1 due to trauma and lost the ability to move his lower limbs. After a year of rehabilitation training, he was not only able to walk independently, but also achieved autonomous control of his bowels and bladder.

"The initial version of 'Beinao-1' uses 128-channel wireless fully implanted flexible electrodes. The electrodes are attached to the epidural mater, taking into account both safety and effectiveness." According to Luo Minmin, director of the Beijing Institute of Brain Science and Brain Integration, in March 2025, "Beinao-1" launched a multi-center registered clinical trial. The indications are spinal cord injury, stroke hemiplegia, limb movement disorders and speech aphasia caused by ALS. "Currently, the trial has completed patient enrollment and plans to apply for a medical device registration certificate in 2027."

The invasive brain-computer interface "Beinao-2" is also advancing simultaneously. Luo Minmin said: "'Beinao-2' uses a 512-channel wireless fully implantable flexible intracortical electrode array, benchmarking international thousand-channel products. It is aimed at severely paralyzed patients who pursue the ultimate in fine motor decoding. It plans to launch human clinical verification within this year."

In May this year, Beijing Zhiran Medical Technology Co., Ltd. launched China's first registered clinical trial of an over-100-channel invasive brain-computer interface system, and high-throughput invasive brain-computer interface technology entered a new stage of clinical transformation. The 128-channel brain-computer interface system used in this experiment is composed of flexible electrodes and a signal collector. The flexible electrodes are made of ultra-thin biocompatible materials, which can effectively reduce the immune response after implantation and achieve real-time, high-precision decoding of fine EEG information. The signal collector is a wireless fully embedded design and supports wireless charging.

"We look forward to using this trial to allow patients with quadriplegia due to spinal cord injury to realize brain-controlled mouse control and restore partial motor function replacement in their hands." Song Qi, CEO of Zhiran Medical, said that the clinical trial is expected to be completed in 2027.

In addition, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Hefei and other places are also conducting brain-computer interface clinical trials at different stages. At present, most high-throughput implantable brain-computer interfaces are still in the early clinical verification stage. Some functional improvements come from the joint intervention of brain-computer interfaces, neurostimulation and long-term rehabilitation training. The sustainability of their efficacy, applicable groups and the independent contributions of different component technologies still need to be confirmed by larger samples, controlled studies and long-term follow-up.

As the next generation of human-computer interaction platform, brain-computer interface is not only used for medical rehabilitation

"Currently, brain-computer interface diagnosis and treatment in my country has entered the critical stage of clinical verification and clinical registration." Zhao Guoguang said that compared with foreign countries, my country has obvious advantages: large clinical demand, huge patient groups such as spinal cord injury, stroke, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, etc.; neurosurgery, rehabilitation medicine, engineering technology and industrial strength are increasingly closely integrated; doctors are deeply involved in technology research and development and clinical program design, making technical goals closer to the real needs of patients.

"Brain-computer interface can only solve some of the problems that traditional medical methods cannot solve, and functional reconstruction cannot be achieved overnight. This requires a rational understanding." Zhao Guoguang also pointed out that its effectiveness, safety, and stability have yet to be tested by time and practice.

"my country's brain-computer interface is expected to usher in a rapid iteration and volume cycle, and its diagnostic and therapeutic functions will be expanded accordingly." Luo Minmin believes that in the next five years, it is expected to realize functional replacement, neurological rehabilitation and repair, speech function reconstruction, etc., which can significantly improve patients' self-care ability and quality of life; in the next 5-10 years, brain-computer interface is expected to achieve more functions. For example: two-way brain-computer integration upgrades from "reading" neural signals to "writing" neural regulation, decoding the intention through the algorithm and triggering stimulation of the own muscles and spinal nerves; synchronous decoding of brain areas, expanding from a single motor cortex to simultaneous collection of visual, emotional, and cognitive brain areas, greatly increasing the dimension of decoded information; in addition to functional repair and tactile reconstruction, it can also be used for mental illness intervention, benefiting groups with high incidence of depression.

Looking to the future, the value and functions of brain-computer interfaces go far beyond medical diagnosis and treatment.

"Don't think of it as 'small'." Ni Guangjian believes that as one of the future industries deployed in the "15th Five-Year Plan" outline, brain-computer interface will drive and promote my country's technological development and industrial upgrading. "Brain-computer interfaces have shown considerable application prospects in aerospace, education, entertainment, transportation, etc., and the application fields will be even broader in the future."

Luo Minmin said that in the foreseeable future, brain-computer interfaces are expected to realize deep collaboration between the human brain, artificial intelligence, and robots, and expand to the enhancement of cognition and perception of healthy people. Of course, these ideas still face technical bottlenecks, and also involve ethical issues such as neuroprivacy, personal autonomy, fair access, and risks of non-medical implants.

What is the application potential of brain-computer interface?

"As a next-generation human-computer interaction platform, the biggest feature of the brain-computer interface is that it can realize high-bandwidth two-way transmission of human-computer information." Song Qi said that when people speak and type, the information transmitted per second is only a few dozen bytes, but the information transmission rate of two agents has reached hundreds of megabytes, several G (gigabytes) or even higher per second. "With the continuous iteration of brain-computer interface technology and the rapid evolution of new-generation wireless communications, artificial intelligence and other technologies, brain-computer interface is expected to achieve higher-bandwidth two-way information transmission. Based on this alone, the changes it will bring to human society have unlimited imagination."

Cultivating industries needs to be based on the present and long-term, and the government, industry, academia, research and medicine must coordinate their efforts

Respondents said that to develop and cultivate the brain-computer interface industry, we need to be based on the present, take a long-term perspective, and continue to make efforts in multiple aspects.

Strengthen technical research. Luo Minmin said that the electrode materials, micro-nano processing, dedicated mixed-signal chips, wireless integrated systems, real-time decoding algorithms, etc. involved in brain-computer interfaces require "extreme" in all aspects. The upstream and downstream industries must carry forward the spirit of craftsmanship, abandon the idea of ​​"outsourcing core components and simply assembling", make great efforts in underlying technology and system integration, and strive to achieve independent controllability and excellent performance.

Establish and improve relevant standards and policies. Zhao Guoguang pointed out that there are still some shortcomings in the current clinical research and application of brain-computer interfaces, and there is an urgent need to establish and improve relevant standards and policies. Unify clinical trial enrollment standards and evaluation indicators to improve the quality of clinical research; build a standardized multi-modal neuroelectrophysiology database, unify clinical data standards, and achieve data sharing; improve product costs, hospital access, and medical insurance payment mechanisms to promote safe, effective, replicable, and affordable clinical applications.

Accelerate talent training. The brain-computer interface itself integrates neuroscience, electronic engineering, materials science, chips, and algorithms. Clinical research and application require in-depth collaboration between medical care and rehabilitation personnel, and there are talent gaps in all aspects. Ni Guangjian introduced that Tianjin University was the first in China to set up an undergraduate major in “Brain Computer Science and Technology” and recruit students nationwide. He believes that we must persist in promoting education development, technological innovation, and talent training in an integrated manner, and adopt models such as school-enterprise and school (hospital) cooperation to increase the cultivation of various related talents.

Strengthen basic research. "Disruptive technological breakthroughs originate from original discoveries in basic research. The depth of basic research determines the height of technological innovation." Luo Minmin believes that although my country's basic research in neuroscience, brain cognitive science and other fields has made rapid progress, there is still a gap in horizontal comparison, and original discoveries are still scarce. It is necessary to continue the layout in the fields of biomedicine, neuroscience, brain science and other fields, and encourage original basic research.

Only deep roots can produce luxuriant leaves, and thick accumulation can lead to thin hair. Respondents said that my country's brain-computer interface has entered a golden period of development. With the coordinated efforts of government, industry, academia, research and medicine, and hard work, brain-computer interfaces have a bright future.

(Reporter Zhao Yongxin and intern Lu Zeying participated in the interview for People’s Daily)