Problem with the first implanted brain chip

Trouble with first implanted brain chip – Elon Musk’s medical technology company Neuralink inserted a chip into a human brain for the first time in January. It is only now known that some electrodes became detached from the brain shortly afterwards.

Problem with the first implanted brain chip

Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink ran into a problem with its first patient. In the weeks following the January operation, some of the electrodes became detached from the man’s brain, Neuralink acknowledged in a blog post from Wednesday.

However, this was compensated by software adaptation. Neuralink only made the issue public after the Wall Street Journal learned about it and asked the company.

The Neuralink implant is meant to make it possible to use thoughts to operate a smartphone – and other technology. The company received permission in May 2023 to use the implant on humans in a clinical trial. The technology had previously been tested on monkeys. The implant has 1,024 electrodes that a robot connects to the brain using an extremely fine needle. For the clinical trial, Neuralink sought patients with tetraplegia — a paraplegia that affects the legs and arms, Stern writes.
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Imagining the movement should be enough

When people start to move, a certain area of ​​the brain becomes active. Electrodes collect these signals. That should be enough to imagine a movement to operate a computer cursor. According to the company, the first Neuralink implant patient will be able to surf the Internet, play chess and the video game “Mario Kart,” among other things.