A second person will receive soon NeuralinkMusk’s experimental brain implant, according to company co-founder Elon Musk.
In a video update on WednesdayElon Musk said the surgery is expected to take place “in the coming weeks.” The company is currently modifying the surgical procedure and device placement to avoid the problems that occurred with its first participant, whose implant partially detached from the brain a few weeks after surgery.
Neuralink is developing a brain-computer interface, or BCI, that uses a person’s brain signals to control an external device. Its first product, called Telepathy, aims to help paralyzed people use a computer using only their thoughts. Musk has said that Neuralink working on a second productcalled Blindsight, to provide artificial vision to blind people.
“You could think of the Neuralink device as a kind of Fitbit or Apple Watch with tiny wires or electrodes,” Musk said in the video, which was livestreamed on his social media platform, X. In the short term, the Neuralink device is intended to help people with disabilities, but Musk said his long-term goal is to use BCI technology “to mitigate the civilizational risk of AI by creating a closer symbiosis between human and digital intelligence.”
The company is currently conducting a preliminary feasibility study to assess the safety and functionality of its device in people with paralysis. As part of the study, Noland Arbaugh Becomes First Person to Receive Neuralink Brain Implant in January. Arbaugh is paralyzed from the shoulders down following a swimming accident in 2016.
Neuralink’s coin-sized implant is placed in the skull and has 64 flexible wires thinner than a human hair that extend into the brain tissue. Each wire contains 16 electrodes that collect movement signals wanted by the neurons.
At first the device worked as it should. Arbaugh was able to use a slider just by thinking about itallowing him to play video games, email friends and browse the Internet. But a few weeks after surgery, the implant began to malfunction and Arbaugh lost control of the cursor.
In a May Blog Post On its website, Neuralink said that a number of wires had pulled out of Arbaugh’s brain, resulting in a net decrease in the number of effective electrodes. In response, Neuralink modified its neural recording algorithm to make it more sensitive and improved how it translates neural signals into cursor movements.
Arbaugh has resumed using a computer with his brain, even though only 15 percent of the implant’s wires still work, according to Neuralink executives. interview with WIREDArbaugh said the device has given him back a sense of independence.
Neuralink is trying to avoid the same problems with its second study participant, though. “We really want to make sure that we make as much progress as possible between each Neuralink patient,” Musk said Wednesday.
In the video update, company executives acknowledged that air was trapped inside Arbaugh’s skull after surgery, which may have contributed to the wires coming out. Matthew MacDougall, Neuralink’s head of neurosurgery, said the company is taking steps to eliminate that air pocket in its second volunteer. It also plans to insert the wires deeper into the brain tissue and track the wires’ movement.
“You might think that the best way to mitigate the effects of wires coming out of the brain is to insert them deeper. We think so too, so we’re going to expand the range of depths at which we insert the wires,” MacDougall said.
Additionally, the company’s surgeons plan to “sculpt the surface of the skull” to minimize the space under the implant so that it aligns with the normal contour of the skull. According to MacDougall, this should “minimize the space under the implant” and “bring it closer to the brain and eliminate some of the tension on the wires.”
Musk said he hopes to implant Neuralink’s device in the “high single digits” of study participants this year. (A listed by Neuralink on ClinicalTrials.gov (indicates that the company plans to enroll three participants in its current study.)
He added that Neuralink is working on a next-generation implant with 128 wires, each with eight electrodes per wire, a change he said will “potentially double the bandwidth if we’re precise in the placement of the wires.” Musk didn’t provide a timeline on when that device will be ready for testing on people.
