BCI Atlas

TUM University Hospital implanted a 256‑microelectrode BCI in a quadriplegic patient (reported as Europe’s first such procedure), aiming at smartphone and robotic-arm control.

Lab — European

Technical University of Munich (TUM) invasive BCI project (lab brief)

Official site → Munich, Germany

BCI · lab · Europe · TUM · microelectrodes · robotic arm control

A team at Technical University of Munich (TUM) University Hospital reported an invasive BCI implantation in a patient with quadriplegia.

Reported details

NeuroNews International reports:

first procedure of this kind performed in Europe (per their framing)
a custom BCI implanted in a surgery lasting >5 hours
256 microelectrodes capturing signals from an area involved in planning/executing grasp movements
goal: smartphone control and eventually robotic arm control
ongoing twice-weekly sessions to train AI decoders
NeuroNews International: https://neuronewsinternational.com/researchers-complete-europes-first-bci-implantation-in-quadriplegia-patient/

Why it’s interesting

This is a concrete example of Europe pushing back into invasive BCI with a tight integration of:

neurosurgery
decoding / AI
robotics

What to watch

Published data (signal characteristics, control metrics)
How they define “success” (cursor control vs functional robotic manipulation)
Scaling and repeatability (more participants, longer follow-up)

Notes on sourcing

Draft. Currently anchored in trade reporting; we should add institutional releases and peer-reviewed publications as they become available.