“A big step on the path to regaining freedom and independence for myself.” Alex is the second patient to have a ‘chip’ from Neuralink, Elon Musk’s company that deals with brain-computer interfaces, in his brain, and he describes his experience that has just begun in this way. “I’m already very impressed with how it works,” he says.
The implantation of the system called ‘Link’ took place last month and the operation performed in the US at the Barrow Neurological Institute went well, so much so that the patient was discharged the next day and the convalescence was uneventful. Neuralink takes stock of the results observed in an update dedicated to the second participant in the Prime study, which is enrolling people with tetraplegia to evaluate the safety of the implant and the surgical robot and the initial functionality of the wireless brain-computer interface (BCI), on the control of external devices with thought.
“It makes me feel like I’m building things again”
The trial’s primary goal is “to demonstrate that Link is safe and useful in everyday life,” Neuralink experts say, recounting the improvements they’ve seen with their second patient, Alex. “From the moment he first plugged his Link into his computer, it took him less than 5 minutes to start controlling a cursor with his mind,” they note in a report shared via X and online on the company’s blog. “Within hours, he was able to surpass the fastest and most accurate he’d ever achieved with any other assistive technology.” Like Noland, Neuralink’s “patient zero,” Alex broke the previous world record for cursor control with a non-Neuralink device on his first day of use.
After the first research session, Alex continued to test the Link’s capabilities independently, using it for example with video games and with computer-aided design (CAD) software to design 3D objects. The latter experience was very much appreciated by the patient: “Taking an idea, turning it into a design and actually having a physical object as a finished product makes me feel like I’m building things again,” Alex reflected. “Another significant step towards providing a high-performance interface that will improve the control of digital devices for people with tetraplegia to help them regain their autonomy,” Neuralink commented. But the experts also worked to prevent the hitch that had encountered the first patient, Noland.
How it works
Link is an implant that boasts 1,024 electrodes distributed across 64 highly flexible and ultra-thin wires to record neural activity. With Noland, however, the technicians had to deal with an accident that occurred in the weeks following the operation: some of the chip’s wires “withdrew” from the brain, causing a sharp decrease in the number of effective electrodes. This led to a reduction in the bits per second (Bps) values, the unit of measurement with which the implant’s performance was evaluated. The problem was then solved by modifying the recording algorithm to make it more sensitive to signals from the neural population, improving the techniques for translating these signals into cursor movements and improving the user interface. This allowed performance to stabilize, allowing Noland to recover, “more than doubling the previous world record for cursor control”, explain the experts, who with Alex ran for cover right from the start.
“To reduce the likelihood of thread retraction in our second participant, we implemented a number of mitigation measures, including reducing brain motion during the procedure and reducing the space between the implant and the brain surface. And promisingly, we did not observe any thread retraction in our second participant,” they report from Neuralink.
Next steps
“To further enhance participants’ experience using their digital devices, we continue to expand the controls available to them. We are working to decode multiple clicks and multiple simultaneous movement intents to provide full mouse and game controller functionality. We are also developing algorithms to recognize handwriting intent to enable faster text entry. These capabilities would not only help restore digital autonomy for those who cannot use their limbs, but would also restore the ability to communicate for those who cannot speak, such as people with neurological conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We also aim to enable the Link to interact with the physical world, allowing users to feed themselves and move more independently by controlling a robotic arm or their wheelchair,” Neuralink experts conclude.
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