As reported in the journal Nature, a clinical trial participant with cervical spinal cord injury used the system to “type” words on a computer at a rate of 90 characters per minute, more than double the previous record for typing with a brain-computer interface. The participant had to merely think about the hand motions involved in creating written letters to complete the task. The research team is hopeful that such a system could one day help to restore people’s ability to communicate following paralysis caused by injury or illness. A clinical trial participant created these letters on a computer screen just by thinking about the act of moving his arm and hand to write. (Credit: BrainGate.org)