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Europe’s First Spinal Cord Injury BCI Implant Completed in Munich as Decoder Training Begins

The procedure is part of a clinical research study rather than an established therapy.

Overview

  • Surgeons at TUM implanted four high-density Utah arrays in 25-year-old Michael Mehringer during a five-hour operation.
  • The interface offers 256 microelectrodes spanning motor, movement-planning and sensory feedback regions to capture single-neuron activity.
  • Researchers report signals from all electrodes and have begun training by pairing imagined cursor movements with recorded neural activity.
  • Next steps include real-time cursor control trials followed by tests using a robotic arm for selected daily tasks such as grasping.
  • The study, Künstliche Intelligenz für Neurodefizite, is recruiting additional adults with severe spinal cord injury with goals limited to experimental outcomes.