In the summer of 2025, the team at the Technical University of Munich Medical Center became the first in Europe to implant a microelectrode-based brain-computer interface in a patient with high-level paraplegia.
Video: TUM Department of Neurosurgery / TUM University Hospital. Featuring the study participant Michael Mehringer, Prof. Dr. med. Bernhard Meyer and Prof. Dr. med. Simon Jacob.
Mapping, implantation, high-resolution recording, and real-time decoding are all performed there during a single procedure, under the same safety standards that apply to routine operations.
The Research Alliance for Neurotechnology and Neuroassistive Systems is an initiative of the Department of Neurosurgery at the TUM University Hospital, based at the TUM School of Medicine and Health and established on a permanent basis. It brings together expertise that was previously spread across individual chairs, clinical departments, and externally funded projects, providing them with a common scientific and organizational framework. This includes invasive and non-invasive neural interfaces, neuroassistive systems, patient-specific decoding methods, and the associated governance.
The goal is to establish a sustainable focus on restorative neuroscience, in which research, technical development, and clinical translation are permanently integrated.
The research is organized into four areas. Three of these focus on clinical and technological applications, while the fourth provides the necessary methods, data infrastructure, and ethical and regulatory framework.
The area covers intracortical BCIs for motor functions, brain-spine interfaces, and spinal cord stimulation. Additional work addresses high-resolution EMG and motor neuron decoding, closed-loop architectures, and clinical evaluation over the course of rehabilitation.
The area covers the work on acute and chronic intracortical recordings, single-cell and population analyses, and the decoding of speech and communication. Further topics are the representation of higher cognitive functions, patient-specific BCI models, and functional mapping for preoperative target planning.
The area includes soft wearable robotics and exosuits, active orthoses, and hand neuroprosthetics. The decoding of grasping and manipulation movements, myoelectric control, and virtual reality for embodiment studies complete the field .
Methodological, technical, ethical and regulatory foundations for all research and development programs. Current topics are machine learning for neural data, neuromorphic signal processing and hardware, and real-time and edge decoding. On the regulatory side there are data infrastructure and data protection, neuroethics and neurorights, and the planning of clinical trials.
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Decoding, safety assessment, rehabilitation, and regulatory evaluation lie between intracortical stimulation and assisted movement. The alliance is addressing these steps in parallel and under shared academic and clinical responsibility, because decisions made at one stage regularly have an impact on all the others.
The neurosurgical operating room accounts for the largest part of this process. There, mapping, implantation, recording, and decoding can all be performed on a single patient during a single procedure.
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Preoperative target planning and functional localisation
Acute and chronic high-resolution neural recording
AI-supported, patient-specific signal processing
Translation into neuroassistive systems and actuation
Testing, safety, and follow-up under clinical standards
Ethics, data protection, and regulation accompany every step
The alliance includes ongoing research programs, projects in the proposal phase, and long-term project lines.
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The first implantation in Europe of a microelectrode-based brain-computer interface in a patient with high-level spinal cord injury was covered by national media.
Images from the operating room, from the data acquisition and decoding programs, and from the daily collaboration among the participating groups.
Images: TUM Department of Neurosurgery.
There are designated contacts for scientific collaborations, clinical-translational projects, industry partnerships, and media inquiries.
