Neuralink says it has fixed the problem with its first brain implant

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, said this Thursday that it has fixed an issue that temporarily limited its first patient’s ability to move a mouse cursor with their thoughts.

In March, the company released a video showing a patient mentally playing online chess without mentioning the incident.

This clarification appeared on your blog after the revelations Wall Street JournalThis was reported on Thursday by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Noland Arbaugh, 29, a quadriplegic after a diving accident, received Neuralink’s N1 implant in January, the first time the device has been implanted in a human.

But “within a few weeks of surgery, several wires came loose from the brain, resulting in a clear reduction in the number of effective electrodes,” the startup explained.

The wires are covered with electrodes that pick up nerve signals. Thus, Arbo’s ability to control the cursor on the screen was limited.

“In response to this change, we changed the recording algorithm to make it more sensitive to signals, improved methods for converting those signals into cursor movements, and improved the user interface,” Neuralink detailed, explaining that the implant control capabilities it has. has now exceeded Noland’s “original performance”.

In March, Noland Arbaugh marveled at his new “powers.”

“It’s so spectacular. There is still a lot to be done, but this has already changed my life,” he emphasized with a smile in a live video broadcast on Neuralink.

According to the California-based company, patients now spend nearly 70 hours a week on the device, half the time on tests related to clinical trials and the other half on personal activities ranging from video games to foreign language classes.

“I haven’t been able to do this for eight years, and now I don’t even know where to start,” he emphasized in his blog.

Neuralink received the green light from the US Food Safety Agency (FDA) in May 2023.

His coin-sized implant has already been implanted in the brain of a monkey, which is then able to play video games without physical control.

In addition to the medical ambitions shared by numerous laboratories and “startups,” Elon Musk intends to offer his implant to everyone in order to better communicate with computers and contain, in the billionaire’s words, “the risk to civilization” posed by “artificial intelligence.”