Musk announces second successful Neuralink brain implant
2 Min Read
He noted that the company aims to have 10 patients with Neuralink implants by the end of the year.
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Elon Musk departs the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Court House in San Francisco on Jan. 24, 2023. (AP)
US billionaire Elon Musk announced that a second person has successfully received a Neuralink implant.
"I think it’s obviously going to get better with each one. I don’t want to jinx it, but it seems to have gone extremely well with the second implant. So, there’s a lot of signal, a lot of electrodes. It’s working very well," Musk stated during an eight-and-a-half-hour podcast with YouTube blogger and computer scientist Lex Fridman.
Musk mentioned that 400 electrodes are functioning in the patient's brain.
Previously, Noland Arbaugh, the first person to receive a Neuralink implant, said as quoted by Sputnik, that despite some electrodes having shifted away from the brain (currently functioning at "plus-minus 15%"), the device's efficiency in his brain is increasing. Arbaugh noted that if future participants achieve 100% or 90% functionality of the electrode threads, they will be able to do things he currently cannot, providing great hope for the future.
Musk noted that the company aims to have 10 patients with Neuralink implants by the end of the year.
In January 2024, Musk announced that the world's first person had received a brain implant.
Arbaugh, the patient, was completely paralyzed after an accident that damaged his spinal cord. Using Neuralink technology, a small device resembling a button battery was implanted in the brain area responsible for motor commands.
Microwires with electrodes extend from the device, receiving signals from Arbaugh's brain. These brain commands are wirelessly transmitted to a computer application, allowing the implant's owner to control it with the "power of thought." According to Neuralink, this technology aims to assist individuals who have lost the ability to use their limbs.
