More autonomy, fewer NDAs: Volunteers have new requests for brain implant trials
After its latest device struggled to perform, brain-computer interface startup Synchon halted clinical trials.
Key points
- Today’s stories have me wondering what it must be like to study the human brain: Every new discovery is a breathtaking revelation, and also a reminder of how little we know, and how far the horizon of full understanding still is.
- It feels a little like looking at the universe, only what is infinite is, in the most literal sense, ourselves.
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Brain implant volunteers want more respect: Ian Burkhart, who had a brain implant for seven-and-a-half years, helped develop new guidelines pushing for trial participants to have the option to be recognized as genuine research collaborators and listed as coauthors on scientific papers.
Burkhart took part in two years-long clinical trials over the seven-and-a-half-year period he had the electrode array implanted in his brain.
Additional details
- Teams have developed brain implants that can be used to control robotic limbs and computers, and even to “speak.” The people who volunteer for trials of those devices play a vital role in that research, and they ought to be recognized for their contributions, says Ian Burkhart, who had one implanted in his own brain back in 2014.
- “These are people who have a device embedded in their brain, are in trials sometimes for years and years … [and contribute] a significant investment of time, of the body, and of intellectual effort.” Burkhart was left paralyzed from the chest down following a diving accident in 2010, when he was 19 years old.
- Around four years later, he volunteered to become the first person to trial a brain implant designed for hand control.
- Your brain data should be yours: The guidelines argue that participants' neural data is personal information, and that NDAs or embargoes should not block someone from sharing their own brain data with their doctor.
- The guidelines call for researchers to fund and plan removals carefully, giving participants real time to prepare " data-chronoton-post-id="1148474" data-chronoton-expand-collapse="1" data-chronoton-analytics-enabled="1"> Scientists have been working on ways to decode brain activity for decades.
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STAT NewsNovember 13, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC →
MIT Technology ReviewNovember 13, 2026, 10:00 AM UTC →
WiredNovember 12, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC →
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