BCIwiki (bciwiki.com) — Precision Neuroscience said on July 23, 2026 that it appointed John Donoghue, Ph.D., as Scientific Advisor. Donoghue is Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience, Cognitive and Psychological Sciences, and Engineering at Brown University, where his laboratory began the BrainGate BCI project more than two decades ago. According to the company, he will advise Precision's scientific and engineering teams on device design, signal decoding, and clinical strategy.
Donoghue's laboratory produced the first demonstrations that people with paralysis could control a computer cursor, a robotic arm, or a prosthetic limb using only neural signals. In a 2006 cover study in Nature, his team reported that Matthew Nagle, a young man paralyzed from the neck down, could use neural signals to control a computer cursor, open email, and play video games. The company credits those demonstrations with establishing the scientific basis for the commercial BCI industry. From 2015 to 2019, Donoghue was the inaugural director of the Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuroengineering in Geneva. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Medicine and a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
"I've spent more than thirty years trying to get signals out of the brain and turn them into useful outputs to restore movement, control, and communication for people with paralysis," Donoghue said. He described Precision's approach as one of the most promising he has seen, saying the company has thought carefully about the whole system, from the electrodes to the electronics to the signal processing to what people with paralysis need to lead a more independent life.
Benjamin Rapoport, M.D., Ph.D., co-founder and chief science officer of Precision Neuroscience, said everything the company is building extends Donoghue's work, with the difference that it reads the same signals from the surface of the brain without penetrating it.
Precision says its initial BCI system, Layer 7, is designed to restore independence and connection to people with ALS, spinal cord injury, and brainstem stroke, a population it estimates at 315,000 Americans. The Layer 7 cortical surface array has been implanted in almost 100 patients across leading academic medical centers, the company says; it has raised $180 million from investors and received FDA 510(k) clearance for the array. Donoghue's appointment deepens Precision's scientific leadership as the company advances toward a long-term implant study and commercial launch, according to the company.