Elon Musk’s BrainChip startup announced Wednesday that its first implant has failed.
Neuralink’s brain-computer interface, known as BCI, was implanted in the brain of 29-year-old patient Nolan Arbaugh in January.
The chip is designed to allow paralyzed patients to control external technology using only their heads, and Arbaugh, who is paralyzed from the shoulders down after a diving accident eight years ago, will test the chip’s safety. Participating in Neuralink’s 6-year trial.
Just last month, Neuralink livestreamed Arbaugh’s nine-minute video showing how the BCI technology works.
He has been seen playing video games and explained that he just imagines the cursor going where he wants it to go and it actually does.
Neuralink’s chip has 1,024 electrodes embedded in 64 “threads” thinner than a human hair that collect data about the brain’s neural activity and motor intentions and send that data to the company’s computers. It is programmed to decode and transform thoughts. action.
But in the weeks since this surprising video, “numerous threads have been withdrawn from the thread.” [Arbaugh’s] “The result is a net reduction in the number of active electrodes,” Neuralink said. blog post It was earlier reported on Wednesday. Wall Street Journal.
As a result, Neuralink was unable to measure how effectively its electrode and thread system was working.
The number of threads that malfunctioned is unknown.
“In response to this change, we modified our recording algorithms to increase their sensitivity to neuronal population signals, improved the technology that converts these signals into cursor movement, and enhanced our user interface,” Neuralink said. He added that the improvements would improve accuracy. Arbaugh’s ability to control cursor bits per second (BPS).
According to the company, BPS is a “standard measure of speed and accuracy.”
“These improvements led to rapid and sustained improvements in BPS that now exceed Noland’s initial performance,” Neuralink said.
The company, which recently changed its home base from Delaware to Nevada, is considering removing the implant after Musk got into a spat with a Delaware judge who invalidated his $56 billion compensation at Tesla Inc. However, the issue did not pose a direct risk to Arbaugh’s safety, The Paper reported. The Journal reported.
Still, the possibility of removing Arbaugh’s implants, a so-called “explant,” had been raised, people familiar with the matter told the newspaper.
Neuralink did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for comment.
He became the first human subject whose brain was implanted by a robotic surgeon with a chip developed by Musk’s company. It was not immediately clear how many other people would take part in the trial or where it would be held.
Despite the uproar, Arbaugh reportedly uses Neuralink’s BCI system for about eight hours a day on weekdays and as many as 10 hours a day on weekends.
“Now I can literally lie in bed and play to my heart’s content,” he said on a livestream in March — at least until the rechargeable chip’s battery dies.
Neuralink, founded in 2016, keeps information about its technology and human testing largely secret, leading to growing calls for greater transparency.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year gave the company the green light to test its brain chip on humans after it conducted hundreds of animal tests, but faced pushback from animal rights groups in the process.
Arbaugh said he agreed to try the implant because he “wanted to be a part of something that I felt would change the world.”
