Back in July, Neuralink CEO Elon Musk announced that the second patient in the company’s history would receive a brain implant to restore lost functions of the nervous system in the same month. Apparently, the operation was successful, since at the beginning of this month Musk announced the appearance of a second patient with an implanted Neuralink implant.
Image source: Neuralink
Let’s remember that the operation to install it involves drilling a small hole in the skull and installing a small device the diameter of a coin into the hole, which connects to the cerebral cortex using some of the thinnest 1024 electrodes available. Their connection with the human brain is carried out by a medical robot specially designed for this purpose. According to Elon Musk, the company’s second patient received the same implant, which has at least 400 electrodes. When exactly the operation was performed on the second patient is not specified.
Let us recall that the first patient, Noland Arbaugh, who received the implant back in January, later encountered a loss of contact of some of the implanted electrodes with the cerebral cortex, which is why Neuralink specialists had to compensate for these changes by adjusting the algorithm for interpreting nerve impulses into control signals. teams. Musk explained that even with 10-15% of the working electrodes, Noland Arbow was able to improve the record for the fastest cursor control using thought. As part of the clinical trial program agreed for this year, Neuralink intends to place implants in the brains of eight more patients.
Lex Fridman was interviewed last Friday not only by Elon Musk and a number of Neuralink executives, but also by the company’s first patient, Noland Arbow. The head of the company admitted that he spoke with US presidential candidate Donald Trump about the need to form a government commission to reduce the regulatory burden on business. Musk himself intends to join the commission, as he believes that existing legislation is holding back innovation in the United States.