Dive Brief:

• A patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has used Synchron’s brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to control his smart home, the company said Monday.
• The patient can use Synchron’s BCI and the Tap to Alexa feature on an Amazon Fire tablet to turn on lights, make video calls, play music and shows, read books and buy products online without using his hands or voice. 
• Synchron is trialing the integration between its BCI and Alexa to allow people who are severely paralyzed to interact with Amazon’s smart speaker and other connected devices in their homes.

Dive Insight:

Synchron, like Elon Musk’s Neuralink, is developing BCI technology for people with motor impairment. The Synchron device is implanted in the blood vessel on the surface of the motor cortex of the brain in a minimally invasive procedure. Once in place, the device is designed to detect and wirelessly send motor intent signals from the brain, allowing users to interact with computers without their hands or voices.

Synchron has worked to connect the technology to consumer devices. In July, the company published a press release and video about a patient’s use of its BCI to control the cursor on the Apple Vision Pro with his thoughts, allowing him to play games, watch TV and send text messages via the headset.

Now, the same patient, a 64-year old man named Mark, has connected to Amazon’s Alexa using his BCI implant. Synchron said Mark is the first person in the world to use Amazon Alexa via an implantable BCI to interact with and control his environment. 

“It's hard to imagine living in our modern world without the ability to access or control connected devices like Amazon’s Alexa and Echo products that are so prevalent in my daily life,” Mark said in the company's announcement. “To be able to manage important aspects of my environment and control access to entertainment gives me back the independence that I’m losing.”

Synchron’s video shows Mark selecting tiles on a tablet using his thoughts. By “tapping” on the tiles via his BCI, Mark turns on a light, views the feed from a camera outside his home and makes a video call. A virtual Fire TV remote enables Mark to select something to watch.

The company completed enrollment in a six-patient clinical trial of its technology one year ago. Synchron plans to present early feasibility data from the COMMAND trial later this month at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons annual meeting in Houston. 

BCI implants, a new technology, could face clinical, regulatory, coverage and payment questions as it advances. Synchron is part of a BCI group that is working with the Food and Drug Administration to develop harmonized approaches to the technology.