A woman with progressive motor neurone disease used a brain implant to generate her own words and communicate in real time through text and synthesised voice.
The participant, a Michigan, US woman in her 60s, became the first person to receive Paradromics’ Connexus brain-computer interface as part of the Connect-One Early Feasibility Study.
Unlike earlier exercises in which participants reproduced sentences selected by researchers, she was able to decide what she wanted to say.
The system decoded neural activity associated with her intended speech and converted it into text and synthesised voice in real time.
When the free-speech function was activated, her first independently selected sentence was: “Okay, I have a lot to say.”
Paradromics said the sentence was decoded exactly as intended, without errors.
During the same session, she used the device to speak with her grandchildren during a live telephone call, asking questions and responding through the system-generated voice.
Paradromics founder and chief executive Matt Angle said: “She determines what she wants to say, and the system enables her to say it.”
The participant has severe dysarthria, a condition that makes speech difficult to understand, although she retains a limited ability to speak.
According to the company, her husband can often understand her, while communication with other people has become increasingly difficult.
When University of Michigan Health neurosurgeon Matthew Willsey asked what advice she would give someone considering the implant and surgery, she responded through the device: “Don’t be afraid. It’s a wonderful experience to be able to help others by your participation in the research study.”
Paradromics said every word she intended to say was decoded correctly.
Willsey described the result as a major milestone in efforts to enable people with conditions affecting speech to communicate freely through a fully implanted device.
The Connexus system contains 421 microelectrodes that record activity from individual nerve cells in the brain.
Signals travel to a small transceiver implanted in the participant’s chest before being transmitted wirelessly through intact skin to an external receiver and computer, according to University of Michigan Health.
Researchers are studying how the participant’s neural activity changes as she listens to language, prepares to speak, attempts to speak and generates language internally.
Paradromics said it had identified different patterns associated with attempted speech and imagined speech.
Attempted speech involves deliberately trying to produce words, while imagined speech involves generating language internally without trying to make the physical movements needed to speak.
The findings do not indicate that the device can passively read unsolicited thoughts. They relate to language deliberately generated by the participant during structured research tasks.
The woman received the Connexus implant at University of Michigan Health in June.
She will be followed for six years while researchers assess the device’s long-term safety, durability and ability to restore communication and enable computer control.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted Paradromics an Investigational Device Exemption for the study in November 2025, allowing the experimental device to be studied in humans.
The authorisation does not constitute approval for general or commercial use.
The trial is being conducted at University of Michigan Health, UC Davis Health and Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute.
The findings are from the study’s first participant and remain preliminary.
Paradromics did not cite a peer-reviewed publication in its announcement, and further participants and longer-term data will be needed to assess the device’s safety, consistency and usefulness outside supervised research sessions.
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