Welcome to the Brief: BCIs raise money and avatars learn to gesture

Hello, and welcome to the first NeuroTechGuide Brief. Every Tuesday we’ll send you the few neurotech stories that matter most, explained in plain English, with links if you want to go deeper.

This week’s top story

Precision Neuroscience raised $250 million. The New York company makes Layer 7, a brain implant thinner than a hair that rests on the brain’s surface rather than piercing it. Its total funding is now about $430 million, and the money will take Layer 7 through the next FDA reviews and toward commercial launch. Read our story →

Research highlight

Speech and gesture together. Edward Chang’s lab at UCSF decoded attempted speech and upper-body gestures at the same time, letting people with severe paralysis drive an expressive full-body avatar. One surprise: the brain’s “speech + gesture” pattern isn’t just the two added together. Read more →

Where the big players stand

• Neuralink: 21 people implanted as of January, with trials in motor control, robotic arms, speech and vision. Story
• Synchron: raised $200M to run the pivotal trial it needs before seeking FDA approval. Story
• Paradromics: cleared by the FDA to start a speech-restoration trial. Story
• Merge Labs: Sam Altman’s start-up launched with $252M for non-surgical, ultrasound-based interfaces. Story

Term of the week: Endovascular BCI

Instead of opening the skull, an endovascular BCI is threaded up a blood vessel and records the brain from inside a vein. Full definition →

Explore

New here? Start with What is a brain-computer interface?, then browse the companies and labs in our Directory.

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— The NeuroTechGuide team