Startup Cognixion announced today that it is launching a clinical trial of its wearable brain-computer interface technology integrated with the Apple Vision Pro to help paralyzed people with speech disorders communicate with their thoughts.
Cognixion is one of several companies, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink, that is developing a brain-computer interface, or BCI, a system that captures brain signals and translates them into commands to control external devices.
While Neuralink and others are working on implants that are surgically placed in the head, Cognixion’s technology is noninvasive. The Santa Barbara, California, company is testing both a software component (an augmented reality BCI app) and a hardware add-on (a custom headband that can read brain signals) with the Vision Pro. The trial will include up to 10 participants in the US with speech impairments due to paralysis from spinal cord injury, stroke, traumatic brain injury, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Cognixion’s goal is to get BCI technology to as many people as possible, and it sees the Vision Pro as a way to do that. “In order to democratize access, you need to do it in such a way that's the least risky and the most acceptable for adoption for the majority of people,” says Andreas Forsland, the company’s CEO.
Forsland started Cognixion after his mother got sick with pneumonia and was intubated in the ICU. She was fully conscious of everything going on around her but was unable to speak; Forsland became her communication partner when she was in the hospital.
“As a result of that, I experienced tremendous breakdowns of communication between her and her care providers, where I had to intervene,” he says. He started thinking about how people with speech motor disabilities need better ways to communicate.
The company has already designed its own headset, called the Axon-R, and tested it with ALS patients earlier this year. Its custom software uses generative AI models that train on an individual user’s speech patterns. Paired together, the technology enabled participants to “speak” through the headset at a rate approaching normal conversation speed. That study showed that patients could comfortably use the BCI for a few hours a day, several times a week.