For years, the BrainGate collaboration has been working to develop the neuroscience and neuroengineering know-how to enable people who have lost motor abilities to control external devices just by thinking about the movement of their own arm or hand. In this study, we've harnessed that know-how to restore people's ability to control the exact same everyday technologies they were using before the onset of their illnesses.
The setup for the investigational BrainGate BCI included a "baby aspirin-sized" implant to detect signals in the motor cortex, which were then decoded and routed to a Bluetooth interface that functioned as a wireless mouse. Similar efforts have been used to allow users to operate robotic arms.