Rodney Gorham can’t move his body or speak, but with a single thought, he commands his world. Five years after receiving a brain implant from Synchron, this Australian in his mid-60s, paralyzed by ALS, can feed his dog, adjust lights, and turn fans off and on in his house.
Rodney’s setup looks deceptively simple: a sleek Apple Vision Pro headset, a small NVIDIA hardware box at his side, and a stent-based implant—called the Stentrode—quietly translating his thoughts into commands. Deployed through the jugular vein and resting in a blood vessel near his motor cortex, the implant avoids invasive brain surgery while still capturing the neural signals for attempted hand movements. Those signals travel through a pacemaker-like unit in his chest to an NVIDIA Jetson AGX processor, where AI models interpret every “brain click” in real time. “When he tries to close his fist, even though he can’t physically close it, the brain signals are still generated,” said Shreyas Agrawal, an associate software engineer at Synchron in an interview at NVIDIA’s GTC event. “We pick up those signals through the Stentrode, transmit them out of the body, and decode them on that hardware, all running locally.”
Rodney’s current ability to control smart devices is impressive, but Synchron envisions more. The company plans to integrate robotic systems into his home, enabling him to interact with non-smart objects. For example, while a smart coffee machine can brew a cup, a robotic arm or humanoid robot could retrieve it after Rodney selects the option through his brain-computer interface.
Compared to competitors that require invasive brain procedures—Neuralink’s 1,024-electrode device implanted via a craniotomy and Blackrock Neurotech’s Utah Array placed through open-brain surgery—Synchron’s tech is implanted via a minimally invasive, endovascular approach.
That is, the technology is delivered into the brain via a blood vessel that sits over the motor cortex. Its lead is connected to a pacemaker-like device that’s implanted in the chest.
Synchron has worked closely with the FDA under the Breakthrough Device designation and completed an early feasibility trial (“Command”), showing no serious adverse effects and confirming reliable signal capture. The company has now implanted the Stentrode in four Australian patients and around 10 in the U.S. This minimally invasive stent-based method takes advantage of techniques familiar to interventional neurologists, allowing the Stentrode to integrate into the vessel wall with minimal scarring or immune response. The entire system is fully internal and wirelessly transmits decoded brain signals to external devices, enabling actions like “brain-click” typing at roughly 14–16 characters per minute.
Rodney isn’t the only Synchron patient making headlines. Philip O-Keefe, another Australian man with ALS, composed the first “thought tweet” in 2021. He wrote: “No need for keystrokes or voices. I created this tweet just by thinking it.”
At present, Synchron is working on the second generation of its technology, which should be ready by the end of this year. “As you can imagine, in the medtech space, it takes time,” Agrawal said. “A lot of R&D is involved in this.”
