Researchers report that three rhesus monkeys used an implanted intracortical brain‑computer interface (iBCI) to navigate a stereoscopic virtual forest using only decoded brain activity. The study, published in Science Advances, shows real‑time control of avatars and a movable sphere across multiple navigation tasks without retraining the decoder.

The team implanted electrode arrays into three motor regions: primary motor cortex (M1), dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) and ventral premotor cortex (PMv). Neural impulses from those sites were fed to an artificial‑intelligence decoder that was trained during a short passive observation phase and then deployed online.

Monkeys performed center‑out navigation, obstacle avoidance, dynamic target switching and continuous first‑ and third‑person navigation in visually complex scenes. The animals generated accurate 3D movement commands without overt limb movements or proprioceptive feedback, and they improved with practice across trials.

According to the authors, decoding signals from M1, PMd and PMv into continuous velocity commands "supported real‑time control across a broad range of tasks including center‑out navigation, obstacle avoidance, dynamic target switching, and first and third person continuous navigation in visually complex scenes." The paper reports that premotor areas (PMd and PMv) provided stronger signals for navigation than primary motor cortex in this setup.

The iBCI generalized across different tasks and environments without additional retraining, which the authors highlight as a step toward systems that can handle unpredictable events in real‑world navigation. They note that further work, including translation to human studies, is required before clinical applications such as brain‑controlled wheelchairs can be tested.

Reference: Ophelie Saussus et al., Intracortical brain‑computer interface for navigation in virtual reality in macaque monkeys, Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adw3876.

Photo credit: scx2.b-cdn.net

Tags: intracortical BCI, virtual reality navigation, rhesus macaque, premotor cortex, neural decoding

Topics: Brain–computer interfaces, Neuroprosthetics & neural implants, Neuroscience & neuroplasticity