Neuralink Patient’s Implants Slipped Out, But He Still Set a Brain Control Record

Neuralink, the brain-computer interface company co-founded by Elon Musk, has encountered both good news and a setback in its testing phase. Noland Arbaugh, a quadriplegic man from Arizona and the first human subject in Neuralink’s clinical trial, had the company’s N1 Link device implanted in his brain in January. However, the electrodes in his brain retracted, impacting the transmission of information. Despite this setback, Neuralink made refinements to the technology, resulting in a significant improvement in bits-per-second (BPS) transmission and surpassing Arbaugh’s initial performance. Additionally, Arbaugh achieved a new brain control world record, achieving a BPS of 4.6, surpassing previous research findings. He even reached 8.0 BPS and is now aiming to beat a Neuralink engineer’s score of 10 BPS using a mouse. Arbaugh has also been able to control his laptop, play online games, browse the internet, and even play Mario Kart on a Nintendo Switch using the neural implant. He has expressed his satisfaction with the technology, finding it superior to the previous method of cursor control, which involved a mouth-held tablet stylus. Despite the setback, Neuralink remains optimistic about the potential of its brain-computer interface technology.