Overview
- This week multiple Chinese outlets reported that surgeons at Huashan Hospital in Shanghai implanted Neuracle’s NEO in a patient with a decade-old spinal cord injury, with officials saying the patient was stable and the device captured high-quality brain signals during the operation.
- NEO is a coin-sized epicortical implant with eight electrodes that sits on the surface of the sensorimotor cortex, records imagined hand-movement signals and sends them to a computer to drive a robotic glove for hand function.
- China’s National Medical Products Administration approved NEO for commercial use in March as a Class III medical device, and Neuracle is reported to be scaling manufacturing, introducing the implant to hospitals, screening patients and securing local commercial insurance coverage.
- The NEO approach is surface-based and described as less invasive than penetrating-thread implants; by contrast, Neuralink has implanted devices in U.S. clinical trials but has not received FDA commercial approval.
- The move could broaden access to BCI-based rehabilitation in China and intensify global competition, but independent international verification of long-term safety and patient outcomes is not yet available.