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<\/div>Noland Arbaugh can play chess using his Neuralink implant<\/p>\n
Neuralink<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
Neuralink, the brain-computer interface company founded by Elon Musk<\/a>, has revealed the identity of its first patient, who says the firm\u2019s implant has \u201cchanged his life\u201d. However, it isn\u2019t yet clear that Neuralink has done anything beyond replicating existing research efforts, experts say.<\/p>\n Musk announced in January that the first human patient had received a Neuralink implant<\/a>, but little detail was released at the time. We now know \u2013 from a livestream video by the company<\/a> \u2013 who that individual is and how the tests are going.<\/p>\n Noland Arbaugh explains in the video that an accident eight years ago dislocated his fourth and fifth vertebrae, leaving him with quadriplegia. He previously controlled his computer with a mouth interface, but he is shown moving the cursor by thought alone, apparently with his Neuralink implant.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just became intuitive for me to start imagining the cursor moving,\u201d says Arbaugh in the video. \u201cBasically, it was like using \u2018the force\u2019 on the cursor and I could get it to move wherever I wanted, just stare somewhere in the screen and it would move where I wanted it to, which was such a wild experience.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He claims to have been using the device to read, learn languages and play computer games, including chess, for up to 8 hours at a time \u2013 at which point he needs to recharge the device. \u201cIt\u2019s not perfect, we have run into some issues. But it has already changed my life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Neuralink didn\u2019t respond to a request for interview, but the company\u2019s website says the current generation of coin-sized implant called N1 records neural activity through 1024 electrodes distributed across 64 threads that extend into the user\u2019s brain. These are so fine that they must be installed by a surgical robot.<\/p>\n In the livestream video, Arbaugh says he was released from hospital the day after the implant operation and that the surgery was a relatively simple process from his point of view.<\/p>\n The implant, whose small battery is charged through the skin by an inductance charger, communicates wirelessly with an app on a smartphone.<\/p>\n Reinhold Scherer<\/a> at the University of Essex, UK, says it is too early to tell if Neuralink\u2019s first human trial has succeeded because the company \u201cdoes not publish enough information to form an informed opinion\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the video looks impressive and no doubt required a lot of hard R&D work to get to this stage, it\u2019s unclear whether what\u2019s been shown is new or groundbreaking,\u201d he says. \u201cControl looks to be stable, but most of the research and experiments they have showed so far are mainly replicating past research. Replication is good, but there are still major challenges ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n Neuralink is far from the only group investigating this idea. Many academic groups and commercial start-ups have already run human trials and succeeded in correctly interpreting brain signals into some kind of output.<\/p>\n One team at Stanford University in California placed two small sensors\u00a0just under the surface of the brain<\/a> of a man who is paralysed below the neck. Researchers could interpret the man\u2019s brain signals when he thought of writing words with a pen on paper, and convert them into readable text on a computer.<\/p>\n We are a long way from this being a commercial product, with lots of testing and accreditation ahead, so it is too early to tell. But Musk has made it clear that he intends to commercialise the technology. The\u00a0first planned product, named Telepathy<\/a>, will allow anyone with an implant to control their phones and computers.<\/p>\n Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\nWho is Neuralink\u2019s first patient?<\/h2>\n
What does the implant involve?<\/h2>\n
Does this mean the first human trial has worked?<\/h2>\n
Who else is working on brain implants?<\/h2>\n
When will Neuralink be commercially available and how much will it cost?<\/h2>\n