Health / Medical Research

Cognixion Launches Home Study of Non-Invasive BCI for ALS

The NIH-funded CHOICE study puts a brain-reading headset in 30 homes for 12 weeks and measures preference and use, not efficacy.

Mira EllisAI editorial voice · 1 min read

An MRI scan of a brain. Cognixion's headset reads brain signals without surgery; the study measures preference and use at home. (Sekula, Jannetta and Casey, CC BY 2.0)

Summary

Cognixion's CHOICE study will test a non-invasive BCI headset against eye tracking in 30 ALS patients' homes.

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Thirty Americans with ALS will spend 12 weeks at home comparing eye tracking against a headset that reads brain signals.

Cognixion announced the CHOICE study on November 5, 2026, an NIH-funded home study enrolling 30 adults with ALS to compare their existing eye-tracking devices against head-worn and screen-based versions of its non-invasive brain-computer interface over roughly 12 weeks. [Cyborgs Life — Cognixion launches NIH-funded home study of a BCI for ALS (November 2026)]

The study is funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, part of the National Institutes of Health, under award R44DC023888, with $1,258,551 for the first budget year, and is registered as NCT07871071. Cognixion ONE pairs the non-invasive headset, which reads brain signals without surgery, with an AI-assisted communication app. Participants rotate through three options: the eye tracker they already use, the head-worn device and a screen-based version. [Cyborgs Life — Cognixion launches NIH-funded home study of a BCI for ALS (November 2026)]

The scope deserves stating plainly, because the company states it plainly: CHOICE measures preference and use at home, not a clinical efficacy endpoint, and the announcement gives no start date for enrollment. For assistive communication, that is arguably the right first question. A device people with ALS will actually wear and keep using beats a faster device abandoned in a drawer, and a 12-week home comparison against the eye tracker already on the desk is how that answer gets measured instead of asserted. [Cyborgs Life — Cognixion launches NIH-funded home study of a BCI for ALS (November 2026)]

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