Glossary / Brain–computer interfaces
Randomized controlled trial
A trial that assigns participants by lot to receive a treatment or not, and compares outcomes, so that the treatment's effect can be measured without bias.
If doctors choose whom to treat, bias creeps in — for example, patients likely to recover anyway get picked. Assigning by lot leaves treatment as the only systematic difference between the groups. In 1948 Britain's Medical Research Council used this method to test streptomycin against tuberculosis, the starting point of the modern clinical trial[1].
Drugs and medical devices usually have to show their effect in trials of this kind to win regulatory approval. For new technologies with few patients so far, it is a major hurdle.
Related terms
- Brain-computer interfaceTechnology that reads the brain's electrical signals and turns them into control of a computer or machine. Abbreviated BCI.
- BiocompatibilityThe ability of a material or device placed in the body to keep doing its job without causing harm or rejection.