Elon Musk’s company Neuralink has performed the second successful operation to implant a brain chip in a paralysed patient, which serves as a link between the human brain and a computer. This is reported by Komersant ukrainskyi
with reference to Reuters.
Neuralink is in the process of testing its device, which is designed to help people with spinal cord injuries. The device allowed the first patient to play video games, browse the Internet, post on social media and move the cursor on his laptop.
“I don’t want to jinx it, but it seems that everything went very well with the second implant. There are a lot of signals, a lot of electrodes. It’s working very well,” Musk said in a podcast by Lex Friedman.
The second Neuralink patient, like the first, has a spinal cord injury, but Musk did not say when the surgery was performed.
He claims that the second patient’s brain has 400 electrodes. The Neuralink website reports that the implant uses 1024 electrodes.
As part of a clinical trial this year, Neuralink plans to install the chips in eight more patients.
The first patient, Nolan Arbaugh, who was paralysed in a diving accident, received the chip in January.
At the end of March 2024, the company demonstrated how Arbeau played online chess with his mind.
In May, Arbo reported malfunctions of the chip – according to The Wall Street Journal, most of the 64 electrodes implanted in his brain had shifted and stopped reading signals. According to Reuters, the company knew about this problem at the stage of animal testing. Later, Neuralink engineers changed the algorithm of the device and increased the sensitivity of the electrodes that remained in place.
Musk founded Neuralink in 2016 to create brain implants. He believes that such technologies have a great future and can help people with diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, as well as people with paralysis and congenital brain disorders.
The company started recruiting volunteers for clinical trials on brain implants in September 2023.
Earlier it was reported that four US lawmakers have asked the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate whether Elon Musk may have misled investors about the safety of the Neuralink brain implant.