About a year ago, Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink installed its brain implant on its first patient, Noland Arbaugh. Soon, the volunteer suffering from paralysis learned to quickly control the mouse cursor on a computer screen. Last summer, he was accompanied by a second patient, and this week Elon Musk announced the successful implantation of a brain implant in a third volunteer.
Image source: Neuralink
The name of the experiment participant is not disclosed, but Musk emphasizes that all three brain implants installed by Neuralink are working properly. Let us recall that last year the first patient experienced a partial loss of functionality of the thinnest conductors connecting the implant in the skull with the cerebral cortex. The functionality of the neural interface was restored due to compensatory measures of a software nature, but the example showed that corresponding risks exist when using the technology adopted by the company for implanting contacts in the human brain.
Elon Musk added that during this year he expects to implant brain implants into at least another twenty or thirty patients. Clinical trial programs agreed upon last year with American regulators allow Neuralink to install five implants on patients who should use them to gain control of a computer or smartphone, and also test on three patients the ability to control a robotic manipulator using a similar implant. In addition, the company managed to coordinate a similar operation in Canada.