(Yicai) March 12 -- China is pushing ahead with setting pricing standards for brain-computer interface technology, but experts point out that clinical implementation still faces significant challenges.

In a notice issued yesterday, the National Healthcare Security Administration established billing categories for procedures such as ‘implantation of invasive BCIs,’ ‘removal of invasive BCIs,’ and ‘adaptation of non-invasive BCIs,’ preparing the way for swift clinical adoption once BCI technologies are mature.

BCI is still at the concept stage, the director of neurosurgery at a Shanghai hospital told Yicai. Some technologies are relatively advanced, but many are still in the research phase, and which ones should be prioritized for pricing requires further discussion, the person said.

While BCI enables direct communication between the brain and external devices, with its potential medical applications ranging from rehabilitation to neuroprosthetics, experts point out that it is early days and the technology is not yet ready for meaningful use.

Ming Dong, vice president of Tianjin University, highlighted the safety concerns around invasive BCI technologies at this year’s Two Sessions, China’s top annual consultative and legislative meetings.

The risks include issues such as the long-term biocompatibility of implants, surgical risks, and post-operative immune reactions, Ming said. Non-invasive BCI technologies are safer, but they struggle with low signal-to-noise ratios and poor spatial resolution due to skull signal attenuation, complicating high-precision decoding.

Scaling BCI applications will require these technical barriers to be overcome, Ming noted, adding that it will also be important to establish robust ethical guidelines regarding data privacy and human trials.

Editor: Tom Litting