Last January, Neuralink, Elon Musk’s neurotechnology startup, announced that they had already carried out the first chip implantation in the brain of a human. The figure of Noland Arbaugh became known for having been Musk’s candidate to carry out the implant as part of a ‘Prime’ study to test its safety. Two months later, the company has revealed that part of its brain chip “is not working properly.”” All of this is happening as the company’s co-founder quits over “security” concerns.
Arbaugh was Musk’s candidate to have experimented with the Neuralink brain implant. The patient lost much of his mobility eight years ago after an accident. Today, at 29 years old, he has an implant from one of the Neuralink prototypes in order to connect the human mind and machine and thus achieve independence. All within the framework of a security study.
To do this, Neuralink created a brain-computer interface, or BCI, that could eventually help paralysis patients control external technology using only their minds. The company’s system, called Link, records neural signals using 1,024 electrodes on 64 “wires” that are thinner than human hair, according to its website.
First implant problems
The company streamed a live video of Arbaugh wearing the BCI in March, and Neuralink said on its website that the surgery went “extremely well.” However, the company confessed yesterday that several threads had been removed from the patient’s brain. This meant there were fewer effective electrodes, which inhibited the company’s ability to measure the speed and accuracy of the Link, according to a recent update on its blog following the ‘Prime’ study.
As part of a workaround, Neuralink said it modified the recording algorithm, improved the user interface, and worked to improve techniques for translating signals into cursor movements. In addition, they noted that they considered removing the implant, but the problem “has not posed a direct risk to Arbaugh’s safety,” according to the WSJ.
For his part, the patient has noted on the company blog that Link is like a “luxury overload” and has helped him “reconnect with the world.”
Neuralink has told the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that it believes it has solutions to the problem it encountered with Arbaugh’s implant; however, the agency has not yet commented on this recent information.
It should be noted that the agency approved the testing of these implants on humans in June 2024. Previously, they were done on monkeys. Thus, the FDA has reviewed the implementation plans of Neuralink and similar startups.
Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company has set a goal of implanting its device in 10 people this year.
The resignation of the Neuralink co-founder
As revealed by Benjamin Rapoport, a neurosurgeon who co-founded Neuralink with Musk, on WSJ’s ‘The Future of Everything’ podcast, he resigned from the company to start his own company called Precision Neuroscience. After resigning from the project that he started in 2016 with other scientists and the owner of Tesla, he hinted that he had “security” concerns.
“Bringing neural interfaces from the realm of science to the field of medicine has essentially occupied my entire career. But I felt that, to move to the world of medicine and technology, security is paramount,” Rapaport said in the interview. .
“Safety for a medical device typically entails minimal intrusion,” the physician continued. In the record, the neurosurgeon explained that this method has a major drawback: “It causes a certain amount of brain damage when it is reinserted.”
Musk’s neuroscience company has been in the eye of the storm and has received a lot of criticism over the years. Between 2021 and 2022, accusations of monkey torture were revealed.
