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08.03.2026 13:21
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Follow on substack: substack.com/@bioniclab/n...
Or LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/posts/tkozai...
Over coming weeks: honest breakdown of why BCIs stop working (mechanical + biological + conceptual gaps), what we know/don’t, and path to lasting implants.
For builders, funders, regulators, patients, curious minds.
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Engineering in today’s implants is remarkable. But devices fail chronically. It’s biology. 🧠 I’ve spent ~20 yrs at Pitt watching (in real time, cell-by-cell) what brain tissue does around electrodes. Findings often contradict old assumptions.
📞 Oct 6, 2016: Recruited by Sam Teller & Elon Musk to co-found (#7 of 8) what became one of the world’s biggest brain-computer interface companies. Turned it down, not bc mission unimportant, but bc critical biology problems weren’t priority (they replaced me w/ 2 people).
🚨 China Just Told You Their Plan to Beat the USA in Neurotech. Are We Listening?
China deployed seven ministries to build a national brain-computer interface industry by 2030. USA is pulling funding from the institutions that built the lead we are trying to protect.
substack.com/@bioniclab/n...
📄 Wellman, Guzman, Suematsu et al. (2026). Oligodendrocyte-Specific Fus Depletion Preserves CA1 Single-Unit Fidelity and Stabilizes Network Dynamics During Chronic Recording. Journal of Neural Engineering. doi.org/10.1088/1741...
#NeuralEngineering #BCI #Neuroscience #UPitt #Myelin
Funded by NIH + NSF. No private investor funds a 16-week mouse study on OL gene biology.
Federal science builds the foundation industry stands on. Neurological disease costs the U.S. $800B/year. This is what the return on that investment looks like.
#NIH #NSF #TaxpayerInvestment #Neurotech
Why it matters: brain implants fail because the brain scars around them, neurons die, signals fade.
This finds a biological target (OL-mediated myelin + cholesterol) that protects neurons and extends device life. Real path toward BCIs that last years, not months.
Oligodendrocytes (OLs) wrap axons in myelin. Depleting Fus in OLs increased myelin thickness, boosted single-unit detection, raised firing rates, and increased excitatory synapse density in CA1.
The cortex? No improvement. Brain regions are not interchangeable.
New paper from UPitt Neural Engineering Cross-Translation (UP NExT) Initiative
Tuning a single gene in myelin-producing brain cells improved long-term neural recording quality in the hippocampus over 16 weeks.
Funded by your NIH & NSF dollars, exactly the kind of early-stage, curiosity-driven research private sectors skip. Federal investment builds the knowledge base for tomorrow's therapies.
Open access paper: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
#Neuroprosthetics #Microglia #OpenAccess
Why care? Millions rely on neurotech for paralysis, Parkinson's, epilepsy, etc. Long-term device failure often stems from immune responses. Understanding microglia-neuron dynamics during stim is crucial for building BCIs & stim devices that actually last.
High-risk, foundational science at work.
🔑 findings: Microglia didn't go full inflammatory mode. But their processes extended more toward neurons showing reduced/stressed activity
This neuron-directed surveillance kicked in over 2 days & was tied to neuronal state, not just the implant. Not attacking, more like targeted monitoring!
🧠 New paper from UP NExT flips the script on brain implants! Microglia (brain's immune cells) aren't just causing inflammation & scarring around electrodes, they actively monitor & interact with stressed neurons during low-freq stim via
Live 2-photon imaging
#Neuroscience #BCI
If you missed it, you can catch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jazU...
#BrainTech #Neuroscience #Neurotechnology
The field is moving beyond asking whether brain stimulation works, toward learning how to design it intelligently. Progress in neurotechnology will come from combining neuroscience, engineering, and clinical experience to create sensations the brain can more naturally interpret.
When electrical stimulation is delivered to cortex, excitation, inhibition, support cells, blood flow, and perception all interact. Understanding how these systems work together is one of the biggest challenges in building reliable brain interfaces.
Great talk by UP NExT alum, Dr. Hughes about how brain stimulation may one day restore touch and visual sensation. The key insight, stimulating the brain is not just turning neurons on, it perturbs entire neural circuits.
#BrainTech #Neuroscience #Neurotechnology
Now is the time to coordinate. 🤝 Integrated Team Science (combining animal mechanistic depth with human perceptual readouts and computational scaling) is essential for the future of #Neuroscience, #NeuralEngineering, & sensory restoration. See stim.bioniclab.org
#TeamScience
Our strategy uses Reverse Translation, where human reports (like "tingle" vs. "pressure") guide high-resolution circuit mapping in rodents and NHPs. These biological insights then drive Forward Translation to design refined, mechanism-guided stimulation protocols for human patients.
We are solving the "Problem of Inception", the initiation of percepts like touch&vision through the precise mapping of stim patterns to circuit-level activity. By coordinating research across species concurrently, we can transform stim into a dynamic dialogue between basic science & human experience
At UP NExT, Bidirectional translation framework moves beyond the linear research model by creating a concurrent, iterative exchange of hypotheses and data across species. This ensures that experimental observations across species and modalities continuously inform and refine each other in real-time
Neuroscience has a "species problem." 🧠 For too long, animal and human research have operated in separate silos, treating biological differences as inconsistencies rather than informative constraints. Our team at the University of Pittsburgh Neural Engineering Cross-Translation are bridging this gap
and social burden of the epidemic on taxpayers and communities.
doi-org.pitt.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/brai...
#PittResearch #NIH #Neuroscience #CNUP #PRCP #OpioidCrisis #NeuralEngineering #PublicHealth #Innovation
Supported by NIH funding, this breakthrough directly addresses the public health crisis of opioid withdrawal-induced relapse, overdose, and suicide. & provides a crucial roadmap for new, targeted therapies for Opioid Use Disorder, helping to reduce the immense economic burden.
The team discovered that chronic opioid use dampens the activity of specific KOR neurons in the brain's VTA. They found that activating these neurons can abolish withdrawal symptoms like tremors and anxiety, and identified a specific circuit that selectively controls GI distress.
New Paper from University of Pittsburgh Neural Engineering Cross-Translation (UP NExT) Initiative! Researchers led by @sarahross1.bsky.social and Ruby A. Holland, alongside UP NExT PI Bryan "Mac" Hooks, have published a major study in the journal Brain.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
#UniversityOfPittsburgh #NeuralEngineering #StrokeRecovery #BrainMapping #Neuroscience #ResearchImpact #PittExcellence #HealthInnovation
