There’s Neuralink—and There’s the Mind-Reading Company That Might Surpass It
Mark Jackson is Play a computer game with your mind. While in bed, three blue circles appear on a laptop screen a few meters away. We get red: the target. Jackson controls a white circle, which he needs to head towards the target without running in blue obstacles. The game is a bit like Pac-man. Except instead of a joystick, Jackson uses his thoughts to control his little white circle. To move to the left, he thinks of clearing his right fist once. To move to the right, he thinks of doing it twice in a row, like a double click.
Jackson, who is 65 years old and paralyzed, is good in this game. He heads for the red circle. It becomes blue and makes a satisfactory Ding! He reached the target. The next round, the circles change position. He goes to the next round, and the next one, and succeeds 14 times out of 15. He has already obtained 100% in this match. Again, he had a little practice.
A few years ago, Pittsburgh surgeons set up Jackson with an experimental-computer interface, or BCI. Made by the startup based in New York Synchron, it decodes Jackson’s brain signals to make commands on the laptop and other devices. He is one of the 10 people – six in the United States and four in Australia – who received the Synchron implant as part of an early feasibility study. In addition to the game, the BCI allows him to send SMS, write emails and shop online.
The Jackson’s medical saga started about five years ago, when he lived in Georgia and worked for a wholesale floral company – his dream work. He thought he had pinched a nerve in his neck. But in January 2021, the doctors of Emory University told him that the diagnosis was much more serious: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. A neurodegenerative disease, SLA makes the nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord decompose over time, resulting in a progressive loss of muscle control. Jackson’s doctor asked if he was interested in joining a clinical trial testing an ALS medication. Jackson said it was obvious.
Jackson in his room on the first floor.Photography: Stephanie Strasburg
Before his diagnosis of SLA, Jackson had taken the work of the wood.Photography: Stephanie Strasburg
But in December 2022, he had lost the capacity to type or lift buckets of flowers at work and had to stop working. He moved with his brother just outside Pittsburgh. “The loss of mobility, the loss of independence that goes with this disease,” says Jackson, “it’s a lot to take, it’s a lot to treat.” He tried to remain positive even though his illness progressed. When the medication trial ended in the summer of 2023, it was impatient to join another study that had a chance to help his SLA.
Synchron’s BCI trial was just starting at the University of Pittsburgh. Although the implant would not slow the progression of Jackson’s ALS, it could make it part of the autonomy he had lost for the disease. “I was immediately excited about it,” said Jackson.
He started the verification process in July 2023, and six weeks later, Jackson was in the operating room. In a procedure of approximately three hours, surgeons first inserted the smell, a metal mesh tube the size of a match, in its jugular vein at the base of his neck. Using a catheter, they carefully put on the aircraft through the ship, in front of the ear and in the side of the head to rest against the engine cortex, the part of the brain which controls the voluntary movement. Then they inserted a small rectangular device under the collarbone of Jackson, which treats the brain of the signals and radiates them with infrared outside the body. These signals are collected by a paddle -shaped receiver which is on Jackson’s chest, then sent via a wire to a unit which translates them into commands. When the system is connected, a pair of green lights shines through its shirt.
