Neuralink’s first human brain implant did not go as smoothly as hoped after the device began to separate from the patient’s brain, the company explained in a blog post Wednesday.
Nolan Arbaugh, a 29-year-old quadriplegic, had surgery to insert a Neuralink chip into his brain in February. However, there is a series of ultra-thin threads that help Arbaugh control a computer cursor while his brain is unexpectedly “retracted” from his brain.
Arbaugh’s implant began experiencing problems in late February.
Neuralink confirmed that its engineers improved the implant and restored functionality.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the diminished abilities did not harm Arbaugh in any way, and he was still able to use the implant to play chess on the computer using his thoughts.
A video published on X in March showed what the brain chip could do.
Arbaugh was shown playing chess on a laptop and pausing the music while controlling the on-screen mouse using only his thoughts.
Neuralink is owned by Elon Musk and was valued at around $5bn (almost £4bn) last year.
In addition to giving paralyzed patients like Arbaugh the ability to interact and communicate more easily with technology, it also has the potential to be a revolutionary use of technology.
Just as Tesla helped bring electric vehicles into the mainstream, the big question is whether Neuralink can have the same paradigm-shifting impact in the field of brain implants.
The first primary use of such an implant is to help paralyzed people live more independently. But the ambition doesn’t end there.
What is Neuralink and how does it work?
According to Musk, Neuralink’s first implant is called Telepathy. “It allows you to control your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking.” says.
“The first users will be those who have lost the ability to use their limbs. Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or an auctioneer. “That is the goal.”
Such efforts have a long history. In the 1970s, Jacques Vidal used eye movement monitoring to enable paralyzed patients to control a computer mouse. The first human brain-computer interface (BCI) implant was placed in a person in the late 90s.
And Philip Kennedy, one of the pioneers of these early experiments, paid someone to implant the Neuralink pioneer implant into his head in 2014.
Like Neuralink, these implants monitor brain activity to translate it into computer input in a way that can be perceived as telepathy; This is where the name of this first Neuralink product comes from.
“Using just a few neurons, patients can move a cursor on a computer screen and communicate by selecting words or letters from a menu,” reads MIT Technology Review’s description of Kennedy’s career.
However, Kennedy had to pay to have the implant removed because the implant site did not heal properly, inviting potential infection. But 10 years later, Neuralink is implanting what are effectively successors to the implant.
Neuralink was granted FDA (food and drug administration) approval for human trials in May 2023, leading to this first human implant in January 2024.
US citizens can register on the Neuralink website to express interest in participating in the trials.
What happens when a Neuralink device is placed on someone’s head? “I think Neuralink will want to give the participant time to recover before they start training their systems with the participant,” says Anne Vanhoestenberghe, professor of Active Implantable Medical Devices at King’s College London.
“We know that Elon Musk is very adept at promoting for his company, so we can expect announcements as soon as we start testing, but real success in my mind needs to be judged in the long term, based on how stable the interface is over time and how much it benefits the participant.
How does Neuralink work?
You can think of the Neuralink implant as two parts. There is the outer casing that holds the battery and electronics. It sits on the skull.
This includes the “brain” of the device and its Bluetooth chip/antenna. Neuralink transmits data wirelessly, similar to sending music to a pair of wireless headphones.
The neural lace is the second part: “1,024 electrodes distributed over 64 strands” need to be placed under the patient’s skull, on the surface of the brain.
Since the procedure requires precision that is not possible with human hands, a robotic surgeon is used in this part.
Although the process has changed slightly since then, Musk explained the basics of invasive surgery in 2020.
“You remove a piece of skull the size of a coin. The robot then inserts the electrodes. The device then replaces the removed part of the skull. And we actually seal it with superglue, which helps seal a lot of the wounds. And you can wander around right after. It’s pretty cool,” Musk said, according to VentureBeat.
This electrode cage allows the Neuralink device to monitor the firing of brain neurons, which are detected as signal “spikes.” And by tracking patterns in these spikes, Neuralink can learn to recognize types of brain activity, a type of mind reading.
The concept is nothing new, but where older implants could only collect a handful to a few hundred of these spiked data points, Neuralink can record 1,024. This should enable him to have the ability to recognize more complex thought patterns and translate them into actions on a computer, or take the concept further and build, for example, a robotic prosthetic limb.
Arbaugh shared more information about exactly how the chip works once implanted, emphasizing that using it means learning the difference between imagined movements and attempted movements. Instead of trying to move the mouse, he has to imagine where the mouse will go in order for it to work.
How much does a Neuralink cost?
Neuralink did not disclose the price of the implant. But Bloomberg estimates the cost at $10,500 (about £8,300) and suggests insurers will charge $40,000 (£31,500) for the procedure in the US.
Neuralink dangers and controversies
Neuralink hardware has been tested on animals. While the company demonstrated the technology implanted in a pig named Gertrude in 2020, it is known that monkeys and sheep were also tested on animals.
More than 1,500 animals were killed as a result, according to a Reuters investigation. This led to a federal investigation reported in December 2022, but this preceded the company’s FDA approval for human trials.
These human trials are not inherently safe either. There is a risk of infection and brain damage during the procedure.