I'm at Stanford's neural prosthetic systems lab which has previously been funded largely under the DARPA REPAIR program.
Minor point of clarification - while the surgeries to implant the electrode arrays are technically a neurosurgery, they're minimally invasive in the sense that it doesn't actually disturb or destroy any brain tissue since the motor cortex is accessible from the outer surface. The primary concerns now are not complications with surgery, but performance of the electrodes over timescales required by patients (several years minimum).
I'm not aware of any significant complications in any of the BrainGate clinical trial participants to date (if there have been, I'm not aware of them and would be a little surprised to hear it).
>they're minimally invasive in the sense that it doesn't actually disturb or destroy any brain tissue since the motor cortex is accessible from the outer surface.
There's a slogan, "you're never the same after the air hits your brain". Is that hyperbole then?
Minor point of clarification - while the surgeries to implant the electrode arrays are technically a neurosurgery, they're minimally invasive in the sense that it doesn't actually disturb or destroy any brain tissue since the motor cortex is accessible from the outer surface. The primary concerns now are not complications with surgery, but performance of the electrodes over timescales required by patients (several years minimum).
I'm not aware of any significant complications in any of the BrainGate clinical trial participants to date (if there have been, I'm not aware of them and would be a little surprised to hear it).