China Built a Brain Implant. Who Gets to Read What's Inside?

My grandmother once told me the brain was a muscle, which is anatomically wrong but spiritually accurate, and which I think about every time someone asks whether we should put a chip in it. Muscles you can train. Muscles you can pull. Muscles, in certain unfortunate gym scenarios, you can tear so badly you end up filming TikToks one-handed from a recliner for six weeks. The brain runs all of this, the management consultant of the body, and now China would like to formally introduce it to a coin-sized electrode array.In March 2026, China's National Medical Products Administration approved the world's first commercial invasive brain-computer interface, a device called NEO made by Neuracle Medical Technology. According to Nature, NEO is the size of a coin, holds eight electrodes, and sits on the dura mater above the primary sensorimotor cortex. I read that sentence four times before I worked out it means "on top of the squishy bit that runs your arms and legs." The approval covers people…