Listen to bioRxiv Preprints
Turn any bioRxiv or medRxiv preprint into audio. Open it in Chrome, click CastReader, and listen through the whole preprint with paragraph highlighting.
Closed-loop motor restoration with a fully implanted brain-computer interface
We report the first-in-human demonstration of a closed-loop brain-computer interface for motor restoration in a participant with tetraplegia. The system decodes intended movement from motor cortex ensembles in real time and drives transcutaneous stimulation of the spinal cord, restoring volitional arm control at a rate comparable to pre-injury baselines.
Preprint full-text — figures, tables, and supplementary links are skipped
Why Listen to bioRxiv with CastReader?
Preprints move fast. Keep up while your eyes rest.
HighWire Aware
Reads the Whole Preprint
bioRxiv and medRxiv use the HighWire JATS rendering. CastReader reads the abstract, introduction, results, discussion, and methods in the order the authors wrote them.
Clean Audio
No Citation Noise
Inline citation markers and the References section are stripped. Funding, Author Contributions, Competing Interests — skipped. You hear the research, not the scaffolding.
Follow Along
Paragraph Highlighting
Every paragraph highlights as it's read. Click any section to jump — replay a dense methods paragraph, skip to results. Ears and eyes stay locked together.
100% Free
A Week of Preprints in One Night
Completely free. No signup, no subscription, no page quota. Queue the week's preprint backlog.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything about listening to bioRxiv and medRxiv with CastReader
How do I listen to a bioRxiv preprint?
Open the preprint's full-text page on biorxiv.org in Chrome (URL looks like biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/xxxx.full). Click the CastReader icon and it starts reading. Use the .full URL, not the abstract-only page.
Does it work on medRxiv too?
Yes. medRxiv uses the same HighWire JATS platform as bioRxiv, so the extractor handles both identically. Open medrxiv.org/content/... and click CastReader.
What about the full-text PDF?
CastReader reads the HTML full-text view (the .full URL). If only a PDF is available, save it and use our /listen-to-pdf page or the desktop app's PDF reader instead.
Does it handle figures, tables, and supplementary materials?
Figure and table captions are read inline. Figure images, table data, and supplementary files are skipped. Jump back to the page if you need to inspect a figure visually.
Are these papers peer-reviewed?
No. bioRxiv and medRxiv are preprint servers — authors post before peer review. Use them for speed, not for final certainty. CastReader also reads published journals if you want to cross-check the peer-reviewed version.
Is it free? Any limits?
Completely free with no limits. No account needed. CastReader is a free browser extension for Chrome and Edge.
Can I adjust reading speed?
Yes. 0.5x through 3x supported. Speed up for familiar background, slow down for dense methods.
Is my reading data private?
Text is sent to our voice API for TTS synthesis. We don't track which preprints you read and don't store text beyond the request lifecycle.
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Completely free. No signup. No limits. Install CastReader and open any bioRxiv or medRxiv preprint.