By Gabriella James
Courtesy of Robina Weermeijer via Unsplash
Founded in 2016 by Elon Musk, Neuralink is a chip that allows you to control surrounding devices through just a simple thought. The chip has been implanted into the brains of quadriplegic patients who have difficulty speaking and participating in continuous motor functions; the chip has made devices more accessible to these patients. According to the Neuralink website, their goals for the future include restoring “capabilities such as vision, motor function, and speech, and eventually expand how we experience the world.” The implant contains four aspects: the biocompatible enclosure, the battery, the chips and electronics, and the threads. The biocompatibleenclosure allows the chip to endure conditions in the body after implantation. The battery is charged wirelessly through an inductive charger. The chips capture information from the neural signals in the brain and transfer them to the computer application which decodes the data from the signals into actions that the computer will take. Lastly, the threads, which are equipped with around “1,024 electrodes distributed across 64 threads,” record neural activity in the brain. Each thread is manufactured to function under intense environments in the human brain.
In May 2023, Neuralink received official approval to begin testing the implants on humans. Noah Arbaugh was the first official patient of this new implantation. Noah is a quadriplegic patient, meaning that he has paralysis in all four of his limbs. As stated by ABC News, he sustained a spinal cord injury that led to paralysis after he jumped into a lake eight years ago. He claimed to ABC News that now “I can control a computer just like anyone else can, which is not something I was able to do beforehand,” and he is reaping the benefits of the device which has allowed him to communicate and work with technology at a remarkable rate. In looking towards the future Arbaugh states, “It’s going to be amazing when someone can have a spinal cord injury, go into a hospital, get surgery, and walk out a couple days later,” garnering hope for the improvement of this form of technology to improve the lives of many.
Carnegie Mellon assistant professor Johnathan Tsay is currently doing research in areas such as cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, computational modeling and psychophysics, and shared his thoughts on the new improvements of Neuralink. Tsay reports that the new improvements are “super exciting” and that Neuralink is making neuroscience more accessible to the general public through its connective apps and games like webgrid. The game compares how fast you can click on the targets while avoiding misclicks compared to a patient with the Neuralink implant and how fast they click the targets while controlling the computer with their brains.