Last August, Casey Harrell spoke the first clear words his five-year-old daughter could remember hearing him say, a repeat of his wedding vows to her mother, Levana Saxon. The adults in the room cried.
The moment was possible thanks to a wave of innovation in one of the most challenging areas of medicine: reconnecting the brain to the body once something ¡ª an accident or an illness ¡ª has severed the ties. While Elon Musk¡¯s Neuralink Corp. gets most of the attention and investor money in the space, academic labs and rival startups are notching significant advances in repairing that broken bond.
¡°I am using this in a very practical way, right now,¡± said Harrell, 46, who was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2019 and lost his ability to speak clearly a few years later.
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