Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink has struggled with a problem with its first patient. In the weeks after the operation in January, some electrodes became detached from the man’s brain, Neuralink admitted in a blog post on Wednesday. However, this was compensated by adjustments to the software. Neuralink only made the problem public after the Wall Street Journal found out about it and asked the company about it.
Neuralink’s implant is intended to make it possible to control a smartphone – and other technology – with your thoughts. The company received approval in May 2023 to use the flat and round implant in humans in a clinical trial. The technology was previously tested on monkeys. The implant has 1,024 electrodes that a robot connects to the brain with an extremely fine needle. For the clinical trial, Neuralink looked for patients with quadriplegia – a spinal cord injury that affects the legs and arms.
When people start moving, a certain part of the brain becomes active. The electrodes receive these signals. It should be enough to suggest a movement to control a cursor on the computer. According to the company, the first patient with the Neuralink implant will be able to surf the Internet and play chess and the video game ‘Mario Kart’, among other things.
Software had to be adjusted
Due to the detached electrodes, the accuracy and speed of cursor control initially decreased, Neuralink said. In response, the algorithm for detecting brain activity has been made more sensitive and the technology that translates this into cursor movements has been improved. After the software adjustment, the accuracy values were higher than before, the blog post said.
Neuralink did not provide any information about the reasons for removing the electrodes. According to the Wall Street Journal, one of the theories at the company was that air may have been left in the skull after the surgery. The study is overseen by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Research into similar types of brain-computer interfaces has been going on for years, and some people have already had various implants inserted. Neuralink also has several competitors who also want to use the technology commercially.
Source: Krone
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