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In a world first, China has approved a brain implant for commercial use in people with spinal cord injuries.

The device is a type of brain-computer interface (BCI) and is made by the Shanghai-based company Neuracle Medical Technology, a potential rival of Elon Musk’s BCI start-up Neuralink. Brain implants have been used as part of clinical trials for decades, but this is the first time such a device has been approved for broad use in patients.

BCIs, sometimes known as brain-machine interfaces, are devices that record brain activity. Invasive BCIs like Neuracle’s are surgically implanted in or on the brain. There, they record electrical signals from neurons. Software then “decodes” these signals, which can then be used to control a computer cursor or a prosthetic limb, for example.

Neuracle’s BCI consists of a coin-sized wireless implant that sits on the surface of the brain’s outer membrane and controls a robotic glove. It is specifically designed for people with spinal cord injuries, but is only approved for people who still have some upper arm function. BCIs, in general, are typically being developed for use by people with paralysis or other disabilities. Neuralink’s Musk has talked about one day making them available to people with no health problems, but that application is farther off.

One of the first (and still one of the leading) BCIs was created in the early 2000s by a research consortium called BrainGate. The device enables study participants with paralysis—including from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or locked-in syndrome, which involves paralysis of everything but the muscles that control eye movement and an inability to speak caused by a stroke or injury—to control a computer mouse and type on a virtual keyboard. Since then, other research groups have developed devices capable of similar feats.

In the U.S., Musk’s Neuralink has come the closest to commercializing this technology, but questions about the device’s safety remain. In 202,2 the Food and Drug Administration initially rejected a bid for Neuralink to test its technology in a clinical trial. A trial was eventually approved the following year, and then 30-year-old Noland Arbaugh, who was paralyzed below the neck, became the first user to have a Neuralink implant. As of January 2026, the company said it had 21 participants enrolled in its trial.

Other American start-ups, such as Synchron and Paradromics, are developing their own BCIs and are also running ongoing trials.

But while there is compelling evidence from these clinical tests, the devices are still considered experimental. Installing brain implants requires brain surgery, after all, which is highly invasive and carries a risk of infection and complications. And the implants can sometimes move or cause scar tissue buildup over time that degrades their signals. No BCI devices have been approved for commercial use in the U.S.

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Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library/Getty Images

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