Neuralink said Wednesday that its first patient is now in “nearly very stable” condition after the wires connecting his brain to an implant in his skull came loose several months ago.
“Once you finish the brain surgery, it takes some time for the tissue to grow back and for the threads to be fixed, but once that happens, everything stabilizes,” Neuralink executive Dongjin “DJ” Seo said during a livestream on Twitter/X late Wednesday.
The same day, CEO Elon Musk said the pound-coin-sized implant and brain-computer interface, collectively known as Telepathy, would soon be tested on a second patient. The unnamed patient’s surgery is scheduled for “the next week or so,” Musk said.
Neuralink, the company founded by Musk, said in May that several wires in the head of Noland Arbaugh, who is paralyzed from the shoulders down, had become dislodged. The company did not say what caused the breakup. Neuralink’s implant uses 64 wires to connect to the brain, but only 15% of them were functioning after the connection was lost.
Neuralink executives said Arbaugh had air trapped in his head after the surgery, and in light of that and the separation, the company will implement new risk mitigation measures for future patients, including reshaping the skull and lowering carbon dioxide levels in the blood to normal levels, company executives said during the livestream.
“For future implants, we plan to intentionally scrape away the surface of the skull to minimize the gap under the implant, which will bring the implant closer to the brain and relieve some of the tension on the threads,” said Matthew McDougall, Neuralink’s head of neurosurgery.
So far, Arbaugh, who lost most of his body function in a 2016 diving accident, is the only patient to have received the implant, but Musk said he hopes to have in the high teens sign up by the end of the year.
Neuralink is testing an implant that allows paralyzed patients to use digital devices with just their thoughts. The device works by using tiny wires thinner than a human hair to capture signals from the brain and translate them into movements. The company posted a video of Arbaugh using the implant to play online chess and move a computer mouse. After the implant was removed, he was unable to control the mouse, but his function was restored, executives said in a livestream.
Musk said during the livestream that the device would not harm the brain. The US Food and Drug Administration raised safety concerns when it reviewed the device several years ago but ultimately gave the company permission to begin human trials last year.
Neuralink is also working on a new device that would cut the number of electrodes implanted in the brain in half, making it more efficient and powerful, executives said. Mr. Musk said the company is also working on another product called “Blindsight” that could restore sight to the blind.
