Speech motor cortex enables BCI cursor control and click

Objective. Decoding neural activity from ventral (speech) motor cortex is known to enable high-performance speech brain-computer interface (BCI) control. It was previously unknown whether this brain area could also enable computer control via neural cursor and click, as is typically associated with dorsal (arm and hand) motor cortex. Approach. We recruited a clinical trial participant with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and implanted intracortical microelectrode arrays in ventral precentral gyrus (vPCG), which the participant used to operate a speech BCI in a prior study. We developed a cursor BCI driven by the participant’s vPCG neural activity, and evaluated performance on a series of target selection tasks. Main results. The reported vPCG cursor BCI enabled rapidly-calibrating (40 s), accurate (2.90 bits per second) cursor control and click. The participant also used the BCI to control his own personal computer independently. Significance. These results suggest that placing electrodes in vPCG to optimize for speech decoding may also be a viable strategy for building a multi-modal BCI which enables both speech-based communication and computer control via cursor and click. (BrainGate2 ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT00912041).