Chad Bouton
Engineer behind the Feinstein Institutes' double neural bypass, Vice President of Advanced Engineering at Northwell Health, and founder and chief executive of Neuvotion, which is commercialising the platform's stimulation half.
Background
Chad Bouton spent 18 years at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. There he led the NeuroLife work with Ian Burkhart, who received a Utah array at Ohio State in 2014 and used it to open and close his own paralysed hand; Bouton was lead author of the resulting 2016 Nature paper. He moved to the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health around 2018, where he is Vice President of Advanced Engineering.
Double neural bypass
On 16 July 2026 Nature Medicine published, as its cover feature, a three-year follow-up of Keith Thomas, who received five microelectrode arrays across his motor and sensory cortex in March 2023. Bouton is the corresponding senior author. The system decodes intent to move and drives Thomas’s own hand through stimulation of his forearm muscles and spinal cord, while touch on the hand returns to his brain as cortical stimulation. Thomas can now feed himself, drink from a cup and feel touch on his right wrist, and the strength and sensation gains persisted more than two years after stimulation was switched off. The system still runs only in the lab.
Neuvotion
Bouton is founder, president and chief executive of Neuvotion, based in Stamford, Connecticut, which holds an exclusive worldwide licence from Feinstein. Its NeuStim NN-01, a wearable neuromuscular stimulator for hand function after stroke or C5 spinal cord injury, has held FDA 510(k) clearance since November 2024 and launches commercially in autumn 2026. A spinal cord stimulation product, FocalStim, is expected in 2027. The implanted brain-computer interface half of the platform remains investigational.
Why it matters
Neuvotion’s route to market starts with peripheral stimulation, which competes in upper-limb rehabilitation with devices such as the Bioness H200 and ONWARD Medical’s ARC-EX. The implanted system’s commercial future depends on Feinstein enrolling participants beyond Thomas.
Coverage on InsideBCI
- 27 July 2026: Neuvotion launches first US commercial BCI-platform product this fall
- 18 July 2026: Keith Thomas can feel his dog: Feinstein’s three-year double neural bypass lands in Nature Medicine
- 10 September 2026: ONWARD Medical crosses seven ARC-BCI implants as ARC-EX commercial revenue grows 240 percent in H1