Galen Buckwalter didn’t hesitate to get a craniotomy in 2024 as part of a brain implant study at Caltech. The 69-year-old research psychologist wanted to contribute to cutting-edge science that could help other people with paralysis.
Buckwalter has been a quadriplegic since a diving accident at age 16 left him paralyzed from the chest down. The six chips in his brain, made by Blackrock Neurotech, read activity from his neurons and decode movement intention. They enable him to operate a computer with his thoughts, feel sensation in his fingers that he had lost, and, more recently, make music with his mind.
Known as a brain-computer interface, or BCI, the technology is