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News

The first Canadian ALS patient in Neuralink's CAN-PRIME trial is also the first human anywhere to receive the implant via the new transdural surgical technique

Sgt Lee Marten of the Vancouver Police Department received a Neuralink N1 implant at Toronto Western Hospital on 20 May 2026, becoming the first Canadian ALS patient in the CAN-PRIME trial and the first human anywhere to receive the implant via Neuralink's new transdural surgical technique that preserves the dura rather than cutting it open. The story was broken by CBC News and MobiHealthNews on 2 July 2026.

Jul 4, 2026 · 7 min read

Market Moves

Gestala closes US$62 million Angel+ round for ultrasound BCI, opens Shanghai NeuroAI headquarters

Gestala (格式塔科技), a Chinese non-invasive ultrasound brain-computer interface company led by founder and CEO Phoenix Peng, announced on 3 July 2026 that it had closed a US$62 million Angel+ financing round and formally opened a Shanghai NeuroAI headquarters. The company is the third Chinese ultrasound BCI startup to disclose funding within ten days, alongside Sisen Technology (1 July 2026) and Huachao Shenkong.

Jul 3 · 5 min read

Market Moves

The company behind the Argus II retinal implant is heading back to Nasdaq via reverse merger with ClearOne

Vivani Medical announced on 2 July 2026 an all-stock reverse-merger agreement to combine its Cortigent subsidiary with Nasdaq-listed ClearOne, forming Cortigent Holdings, Inc. under the expected ticker CRGT. Vivani will hold between 59.4 and 67.5 per cent of the combined company; the deal requires a concurrent 10 to 15 million dollar registered offering and is targeted to close in the third quarter of 2026.

Jul 2 · 7 min read

Research

An Imperial-Tsinghua BCI lets ten healthy people control a pair of extra robotic arms while balancing a ball with their own hands

Tianyu Jia and Dario Farina at Imperial College London, with collaborators at Tsinghua University and Southeast University Nanjing, published a Nature Communications paper on 2 July 2026 describing a tactile-encoded non-invasive BCI in which ten healthy participants controlled four supernumerary robotic degrees of freedom concurrently with a bimanual ball-balancing task, reaching 74.79 per cent single-task and 59.69 per cent dual-task online accuracy after three days of training.

Jul 2 · 8 min read

Market Moves

Sisen Technology, a Tsinghua-and-ETH ultrasonic BCI startup, raises tens of millions of yuan for glioblastoma drug delivery

Sisen Technology, founded in December 2025 by Tsinghua and ETH Zurich alumni, raised tens of millions of yuan in seed funding co-led by Inno Angel Fund and Tsinghua Alumni Seed Fund, targeting glioblastoma blood-brain-barrier opening as its first indication.

Jul 1 · 5 min read

Research

A Bath-and-Ulster EEG headset lifts covert-consciousness detection in brain-injury patients from 39 to 69 per cent

Naomi du Bois and Damien Coyle at the University of Bath and Ulster University published a Nature Communications Medicine paper on 17 April 2026, press-released by Bath on 30 June, showing a multi-session wearable EEG motor-imagery BCI lifted minimally-conscious-state detection from 39 to 69 per cent across 42 brain-injury patients.

Jul 1 · 6 min read

Research

Meta's Brain2Qwerty v2 hits 61 per cent word accuracy decoding typed sentences from MEG

Meta AI released Brain2Qwerty v2 on 29 June 2026: a non-invasive system that decoded typed sentences from MEG brain signals at 61 per cent average word accuracy across nine healthy volunteers.

Jun 30 · 8 min read

Market Moves

Aurenar's V-Link ear-worn vagus-nerve stimulator receives FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for cerebral vasospasm in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage

Aurenar, a Washington University neurosurgery spinout led by Eric Leuthardt, received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation on 30 June 2026 for the V-Link System, a non-invasive transauricular vagus nerve stimulator targeting cerebral vasospasm in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage patients.

Jun 30 · 4 min read

Research

A Chalmers-led review argues visual and somatosensory cortical prostheses have converged into one engineering problem

Giacomo Valle at Chalmers and co-authors from Pittsburgh, Amsterdam and Miguel Hernández University published a Nature Reviews Bioengineering paper on 1 June 2026 arguing that fifty years of parallel work on visual and somatosensory cortical microstimulation prostheses have converged into a single engineering discipline.

Jun 30 · 4 min read

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