Leigh R. Hochberg, MD, PhD, a vascular and critical care neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, and an associate professor of engineering at Brown University, has won a $1,641,781 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through its Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. He, his colleague Arto Nurmikko, PhD, the L. Herbert Ballou University Professor of Engineering and Physics at Brown, and other team members, will use the funding to advance the BrainGate Neural Interface System and make it a fully implanted medical treatment system. Hochberg was the principal investigator and lead clinical investigator of the pilot clinical trials of the BrainGate2. Nurmikko oversaw the device’s invention.
Preclinical testing is a first step toward making wireless transmission of neural signals available for use in human patients. Photograph by Mike Cohea, courtesy of Brown University.
According to the project description, the BrainGate is a collaborative, multi-institutional project that brings together leaders in neurology, neurosurgery, neuroscience, neuroengineering, and medical device clinical trials to complete the manufacture and regulatory assessment of this technology and perform a rigorous early feasibility study in which six participants with tetraplegia will test the investigational BrainGate3 at home for at least one year. This study will provide early clinical experience with the neurotechnology platform, and will inform the development of next-generation closed-loop neural recording and stimulating devices to help manage the symptoms of neurologic and neuropsychiatric disease. Ultimately, the goal is to transition from a device that is used occasionally under medical supervision to one that patients can use independently on an ongoing basis.
In other BrainGate-related news, on September 15, Brown University reported that John Simeral, PhD, another BrainGate investigator and an assistant professor of engineering (research) at Brown and research biomedical engineer at the Providence VA Medical Center (PVAMC), Rhode Island, is the principal investigator for a $50,000 grant received as part of the stage 1 of the Conquer Paralysis Now Challenge.
