After more than a decade of engineering work, researchers at Brown University and a Utah company, Blackrock Microsystems, have commercialized a wireless device that can be attached to a person’s skull and transmit via radio thought commands collected from a brain implant, reports MIT Technology Review.

Blackrock says it will seek clearance for the system from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In current experiments, brain signals are collected through a cable screwed into a port on the patient's skull, then fed along wires to a rack of signal processors.

The interface processes brain data inside a device about the size of an automobile gas cap. Developed by a consortium, called BrainGate, which is based at Brown, the device is attached to the skull and wired to electrodes inside the brain.

Inside the device is a processor to amplify the electrical spikes emitted by neurons, circuits to digitize the information and a radio to beam it a distance of a few meters to a receiver. There, the information is available as a control signal.

The device transmits data out of the brain at rate of 48 megabits per second and uses about 30 milliwatts of battery power.

Blackrock has begun selling the wireless processor, which it calls “Cereplex-W.” The device costs about $15,000 and is being sold to research labs that study primates.

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