The first patient with a brain implant from Neuralink plays online chess
Neuralink, a company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has demonstrated for the first time a patient with a chip implanted in his brain playing online chess.
What is known
Noland Arbaugh, 29, who was left paralyzed from the shoulders down after a diving accident, played chess on his laptop, controlling the cursor with his mind, thanks to a device from Neuralink. He appeared in the video alongside Bliss Chapman, Neuralink’s program manager, and answered a question about how the technology works, saying that it required him to “imagine the cursor moving…
— Neuralink (@neuralink) March 20, 2024
For the first time in history, a person with a Neuralink brain implant was able to control a computer mouse just by thinking about it. This became possible after Neuralink implanted the chip in the human brain in January this year, receiving permission to recruit people for clinical trials in the fall of 2023. The startup’s founder, Elon Musk, said that the patient has fully recovered from the surgery and can now control the mouse cursor by just thinking about it. The Neuralink technology uses up to 1024 micro-wires with a diameter of 5 microns, which are “sewn” into the patient’s gray matter to connect with neighboring neurons. This makes it possible to accurately track the electrical activity of the brain and translate it into a digital code.
Noland Arbaugh shared his experience with the new technology and said that the technology is “not perfect” and there is still work to be done, but it has “already changed his life.” Noland also added that the Neuralink device was “intuitive” and that his experience with it was “wild.”
For those who don’t know
Neuralink is an American neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk and a team of seven scientists and engineers in 2016. The company develops implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and is based in Fremont, California. Neuralink received approval to conduct clinical trials in the United States in May 2023. The company’s first product is called “Telepathy” and allows you to control your phone or computer with your mind. The first users will be people who have lost the ability to move their limbs.
