Here’s an Idea: How a Brain-Computer Interface Works

For some people, a critical link – the one sending signals from brain to body, the one connecting thought to action – does not work properly, or in some cases, has been severed entirely.

Marcus Gerhardt, CEO and co-founder of the Salt Lake City, UT-based company Blackrock Neurotech, is creating a technology called a brain-computer interface. The tiny implant aims at restoring the connection between mind and motion.

On this episode of Here’s an Idea, Gerhardt explains how a millimeter-sized device, when placed on the brain, offers quadriplegic patients (those with paralysis of all four limbs) and tetraplegic patients (those who cannot move the upper and lower parts of their body) the chance to move a cursor, eat a chocolate bar, and even fist-bump the President.

See how a brain-computer interface works. Listen to this episode of Here’s an Idea below.

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Ian Burkhart poses for a portrait along the Scioto Mile in Columbus, OH on July 10, 2022. Burkhart is a former brain-computer interface participant at The Ohio State University who formed a foundation to help spinal cord injury patients
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They Blazed a Trail With ‘Brain-Computer Interfaces.’ Now They Want to Help Shape the Field’s Future

Now, Burkhart is creating a group for the BCI community led by its pioneering users to discuss the kinds of questions he had seven years ago — and to serve more broadly as a forum to talk with others in the BCI community. The BCI Pioneers Coalition will center on the unique experience of Burkhart and his peers, whose numbers have nearly doubled since Burkhart received his BCI.

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