“Individuals with paralysis may be steps closer to controlling external devices with their thoughts after Neuralink has claimed initial success with its brain-chip implant.”
Credit: Neuralink
Elon Musk, the billionaire who founded SpaceX, introduced Neuralink in 2016. He was previously the chairman of Tesla and currently owns X. He claimed that the first human patient to receive a surgical diagnosis using Neuralink’s Surgical robot had fully recovered and was able to use his thoughts to manipulate a computer mouse. Researchers will test this technique on an ideal subject suffering from quadriplegia caused by a cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
First Human Trial
Neuralink began its first human trials in September 2023. Under an FDA investigational device exemption, it recruited individuals who had quadriplegia from either amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or cervical spinal cord damage.
In January 2024, surgeons operated on Nolan Arba, a 29-year-old who had lived with quadriplegia for 8 years after dislocating his C4 and C5 vertebrae in an accident. He has no sensation or control of his body from his shoulders down. Nolan currently has neuralink and one brain-computer interface chip implanted underneath his scalp and sitting flush with the bone of his skull, which connects the brain with 64 tiny wires on the surface of the brain about 2mm in depth targeting the motor cortex region. The chip depicts brain waves into computer commands. Nolan said about the battery life, it lasts for 8 hours on a single charge. He was also positive about the experience of no cognitive impairment. Nolan is the first human for this technology but not the last. To achieve the final results, this project may take up to 6 months.
In 2021, Neuralink performed 155 surgeries on sheep, pigs, and monkeys. In 2022, there were 294 total surgeries. Now, the plan is to perform 11 human implants in 2024, 27 implants in 2025, and 79 implants in 2026. The company aims to increase surgeries to 499 in 2027 exponentially and anticipates completing 22,204 surgeries by 2030.
In a tweet on the X platform, Elon Musk said, “Progress is good and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware of. The patient is able to move a mouse around the screen just by thinking.”
What does work in Brain-Computer Interface?
The aim of this project is to connect the nervous system to the computer. This will help people with brain issues or injuries. It may even improve their memory and intelligence.
On Neuralink’s website, their mission is: “Create a generalized brain interface to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs today and unlock human potential tomorrow.”
Lack of transparency about brain implant
Some scientific and ethical concerns have been raised about the brain implant, which claims a lack of scrutiny. Associate professor Laura Cabrera from Pennsylvania State University told the Associated Press that Neuralink’s surgery is ground-breaking, but such brain surgery can have potential risks like hemorrhage or seizure in patients.
Conclusion
Working on brain chips is not a new idea as it was performed previously with wires connected with the brain to transfer information to computers, but Neaulink’s BCI is a wireless chip transmitting signals to other devices. Nolan is the first person to face any kind of potential risks, but the company has long-term goals to work on the perfection of chips that can help patients with eye-sight, movement, and treatment of paralysis in the near future. Let’s hope for a better future in technology.