Background

Benjamin Rapoport is a neurosurgeon and early Neuralink co-founder who established Precision Neuroscience in 2021 after departing Neuralink to pursue a distinct technological vision. He co-founded Precision with Michael Mager, Demetrios Papageorgiou, and Mark Hettick. His clinical neurosurgery expertise and experience with high-volume implantation procedures uniquely qualify him to design practical surgical approaches to brain-computer interfaces.

Layer 7 Design Philosophy

Rapoport developed the Layer 7 Cortical Interface based on a conviction that surface-array approaches offer superior biocompatibility compared to penetrating electrodes. The design emphasizes minimal surgical trauma, positioning electrodes on the brain’s surface rather than drilling into cortical tissue. The thin-film array conforms to the brain’s surface and is approximately one-fifth the thickness of a human hair, while maintaining 1,024-channel recording capability.

Surgical Innovation

His design reflects deep understanding of chronic implant pathology, particularly the foreign-body response and glial scarring that degrade signal quality over years. By eliminating cortical penetration, the Layer 7 approach addresses a fundamental limitation of Utah Array-based systems used in competing BCIs.

FDA Milestone

Rapoport led Precision Neuroscience to FDA 510(k) clearance in April 2025, authorising the Layer 7 array for commercial use in recording, monitoring, and stimulating on the brain’s surface for implantation durations of up to 30 days. The clearance established regulatory precedent for surface-array BCIs as a distinct device category and is the first FDA-cleared cortical surface array for human use.