Trials

Shandong Provincial Hospital in eastern China has registered a pilot trial that will test whether patients with acute ischemic stroke can begin brain-signal-driven arm training within days of onset. The planned 60 participants will practice upper-limb movements with a scalp EEG brain-computer interface that reads their intention to move and gives training feedback, compared against a sham-training group. Both groups will train for 10 days on top of standard early rehabilitation, twice a day for about 30 minutes per session. The primary outcome is the change in upper-limb motor function score 30 days after randomization. The trial is not yet recruiting and is expected to start in October 2026.

Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine has registered a parallel-design interventional trial, ChiCTR2600124411, that plans to enroll 81 patients with unilateral upper-limb impairment after stroke in three groups of 27. Two groups receive intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or the primary motor cortex, and one receives sham stimulation; all three undergo motor imagery BCI training. Primary outcomes are BCI decoding accuracy, the Fugl-Meyer Assessment and brain network topology. The trial was registered on May 12, 2026 and is not yet recruiting.

The trial plans to enroll 40 patients with Parkinson's disease aged 40 to 80, randomized into 2 groups: one adds brain-computer interface rehabilitation training to functional electrical stimulation, the other receives functional electrical stimulation alone. Both arms train 20 minutes per day for the upper extremities and 20 minutes per day for the lower extremities, completing 12 treatment days within 2 weeks. The primary endpoint is a motor symptom rating scale, with diffusion tensor imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, resting-state fMRI, and sleep, cognitive and mood scales as secondary endpoints, testing whether adding BCI training produces measurable change beyond motor symptoms.

A trial testing a brain-computer interface (BCI) combined with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in patients with disorders of consciousness was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) on May 7, 2026 under the number ChiCTR2600124127, and is now recruiting. The design, sample size and sponsor are not given in the record and would have to be checked against the original registration.

A trial at Xuzhou Rehabilitation Hospital Affiliated to Xuzhou Medical University paired a motor imagery brain-computer interface with modified constraint-induced movement therapy to restore upper-limb function after stroke. The hospital is a rehabilitation specialty facility affiliated with Xuzhou Medical University, and the combined approach is meant to test whether a BCI adds benefit on top of established rehabilitation training. It planned 40 participants, 20 in the combined group and 20 in the control group, with the first patient enrolled on December 24, 2025; the registry now lists the study as completed. The primary endpoint is the Fugl-Meyer Assessment for Upper Extremity, with the Wolf Motor Function Test and modified Barthel Index as secondary measures. Funding comes from the New Round of Xuzhou "Pengcheng Talent Program" — High-level Healthcare Talent Recruitment and Development Project, project number 2025TD14. No results are posted, so whether the combined approach beats constraint therapy alone remains unknown.

A randomized, sham-controlled trial will pair a non-invasive brain-computer interface with MRI-guided multichannel temporal interference stimulation in patients whose migraines resist medication. It plans to enroll 78 people aged 18 to 65, split evenly between real and sham stimulation, with headache frequency as the primary endpoint. The registration lists only design and bibliographic fields, so device details and actual enrollment remain unknown and efficacy has yet to be read out.

The Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) has logged a study of the safety and efficacy of early brain-computer interface training given after reperfusion therapy in patients with acute ischemic stroke, an attempt to pin down when in the recovery window such training should start. Registered on April 27, 2026 as ChiCTR2600123548, the trial has not begun recruiting, and design, sample size and sponsor are absent from the record carried by the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and must be read from the original registration.

The Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) has logged a multicenter randomized controlled trial testing whether brain-computer interface-based mindfulness meditation relieves the symptoms of chronic tinnitus. Registered on April 23, 2026 as ChiCTR2600123258, the trial has not begun enrolling patients, and its design, sample size and sponsor must be read from the original registration record. It is the first multicenter registration to combine BCI with mindfulness meditation for chronic tinnitus, moving the approach from single-center exploration toward multicenter validation.

A trial registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry combines low-frequency rTMS with motor imagery brain-computer interface therapy, using conventional physical rehabilitation as the control, with the Fugl-Meyer upper extremity scale as the primary endpoint. The study has three parts: Part I compares BCI therapy with conventional rehabilitation, while Part III compares three rTMS protocols. It plans to enroll 213 participants, with first enrolment set for May 1, 2026; recruitment has not yet begun.

The trial combines a brain-computer interface with robotic mirror therapy into a single intervention, while the control arm receives conventional comprehensive rehabilitation only. It enrolls patients aged 30 to 80 with unilateral upper-limb motor impairment 1 to 6 months after ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke, whose lesions are confined to the basal ganglia. The primary endpoint is the Fugl-Meyer Assessment of the Upper Extremity, with EEG, functional MRI and the Modified Ashworth Scale among secondary measures. The planned enrollment is 40 patients, with first enrollment set for May 1, 2026.

A brain-computer interface (BCI) trial for upper-limb motor rehabilitation after hemorrhagic stroke was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry under the number ChiCTR2600122859 on April 20, 2026, and has not yet begun recruiting. The study combines electroencephalography (EEG) with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The registration record does not disclose the study design, sample size or sponsor.

A trial of a dual-task brain-computer interface (BCI) combining motor-intention detection with virtual reality training is recruiting patients to measure how it affects shoulder function after rotator cuff repair surgery, following its registration with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) on April 20, 2026. The record has been reposted by the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP).

A trial registered in China pairs brain-computer interface technology with mindfulness meditation training for adolescents with depression, recording EEG alongside the sessions to see how brain activity changes. The question is whether real-time brain signals can be read during meditation and fed back into the training, making the intervention more responsive to each participant's state. Recruitment has not yet started, and the design, sample size and sponsor have not been disclosed.

Johns Hopkins University has launched the INTENT clinical trial to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of an implantable device that records and stimulates different brain areas, enabling adults with disabling paralysis to control assistive devices and receive feedback. The trial is now recruiting participants with conditions including tetraplegia, ALS, brain stem stroke, and spinal cord injury. Johns Hopkins is a leading U.S. research university whose medical school is renowned in neuroscience. The trial was first posted on ClinicalTrials.gov on April 13, 2026, and is currently recruiting.

A randomized controlled trial of motor-imagery brain-computer interface (BCI) training for swallowing difficulty after stroke was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) on April 9, 2026, under the number ChiCTR2600122162. It will test whether the training improves swallowing function in stroke patients, and has not yet begun recruiting.

A randomized controlled trial in 120 patients with post-stroke hemiplegia found that pairing brain-computer interface (BCI) rehabilitation training with a gait robot accelerated lower-limb recovery and improved muscle activation patterns more than either intervention on its own. After eight weeks, BCI training, gait-robot training and the combination all improved lower-limb motor function, muscle activity and gait compared with routine training, but the combined group showed the largest increases in integrated electromyography of the tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius, along with a greater gain in step frequency and a greater reduction in step width.

A new entry in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry covers a study using brain-computer interface technology for functional recovery after stroke. The record, ChiCTR2600120924, was posted on March 23, 2026, and lists its status as not yet recruiting. The registry listing carries only bibliographic details, so the trial design, sample size and sponsor remain undisclosed.

A Chinese trial will measure the immediate effects of a non-invasive brain-machine interface combined with multimodal training on neurophysiological function in patients with upper-limb hemiparesis after stroke. It was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry as ChiCTR2600120046 on March 9, 2026 and has not begun recruiting.

The Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) has logged a study of a brain-computer interface (BCI)-enabled cognitive rehabilitation system, set to test its clinical effect in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Registered on February 25, 2026 as ChiCTR2600119334, the trial is not yet recruiting.

Neuralink said its clinical trials worldwide now include 21 participants. After making surgical and postoperative changes in response to thread retraction in the first recipient, the company reported higher signal quality in 18 of the next 20 participants. The figures come from a company update rather than a peer-reviewed clinical report.

Tongji Hospital in Wuhan announced a brain-computer interface research institute on 5 September 2025, which it says is the first of its kind run by a hospital in China rather than by a university or a company. The institute covers basic research, clinical application and commercialisation, with the stated aim of building a full-chain BCI system spanning prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of neurological disease.

Neuracle Medical Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. ran a clinical trial in China evaluating the safety and efficacy of its implantable wireless brain-computer interface, NEO, in patients with tetraplegia caused by spinal cord injury. The trial is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT06990412 and is listed as completed; its stated primary purpose was to provide the basis for product registration. NEO is designed to let patients control external devices with brain signals.

NeuroXess and Huashan Hospital reported a single-patient test of a 256-channel flexible implantable BCI. In postoperative training, decoding accuracy reached 71% across 142 commonly used Mandarin syllables, with per-character latency below 100 milliseconds. The participant had a language-area tumor and epilepsy, so the company-reported result does not establish performance in people who have lost speech.

Austrian company g.tec medical engineering GmbH has registered a brain-computer interface rehabilitation trial in Parkinson's disease on ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT06690931, first posted on November 15, 2024 and marked completed as of the entry's September 3, 2026 update. It evaluates recoveriX PRO, which pairs motor imagination with functional electrical stimulation (FES) and virtual reality feedback, the user wearing an EEG cap whose recorded neural activity drives the feedback devices, and it asks whether the therapy significantly improves motor function, whether it outperforms standard treatment, and whether it is equally safe. The BCI group trains six times a week for four weeks, 24 sessions in all, while the control group gets the same schedule of FES and VR without EEG monitoring; no results are posted in the registry entry.

Synchron reported 12-month results from the U.S. COMMAND early feasibility study in six people with severe chronic bilateral upper-limb paralysis. All participants met the primary safety endpoint of no device-related serious adverse event causing death or permanent increased disability, and motor-intent signals were converted into digital actions throughout the study. The disclosure was not a two-year pivotal-trial report.

Neuralink said thread retraction in its first PRIME participant temporarily reduced BCI performance before the threads stabilized and performance recovered. For the second implant, the team reduced brain motion during surgery and narrowed the gap between the implant and the brain surface. The company reported no thread retraction in the second participant at the time, but it did not publish channel-attrition rates or a formal interim safety report.

The University of Miami has opened a clinical trial testing whether a brain-computer interface can decode upper-limb motor intention from EEG or ECoG and use it both to trigger epidural spinal cord stimulation (ESCS) and to control assistive devices in people with spinal cord injury. The study was first posted on August 1, 2024, and is recruiting.

The University of Miami is recruiting participants with incomplete spinal cord injury for a walking rehabilitation trial combining a brain-computer interface with transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation. The trial is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT06406855 and is currently recruiting.

Chinese registry ChiCTR2400081380 describes a 96-patient trial of an implantable closed-loop recording and stimulation system for focal drug-resistant epilepsy in people aged 6 to 70. All participants are to receive the implant and then be randomized one month later to active or sham stimulation, 48 per group. The registry provides no evidence that enrollment had passed 50%.

A randomized clinical trial called BCI-REHAB compared an at-home brain-computer interface (BCI) therapy system with a home exercise program for upper-extremity rehabilitation in chronic stroke survivors. The trial, conducted in the United States, was first posted on July 28, 2023, last updated on August 12, 2026, and has a status of completed. The study used Neurolutions' IpsiHand Upper Extremity Rehabilitation System, which reads motor intentions via scalp electrodes and drives an exoskeleton hand device to facilitate repetitive hand movement training. The trial aimed to evaluate the efficacy of BCI-based therapy versus standard exercise therapy and assess the potential for meaningful motor improvement in a home setting. The trial covered conditions including stroke, hemiparesis, spasticity as a sequela of stroke, and chronic stroke survivors with a plegic hand, but results have not yet been published.