ENTRE News – Neuralink‘s first patient managed to move a mouse and play chess using only a chip implanted in his brain. Like how? The moment was broadcast live by Neuralink, a neurotechnology company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, on social media X (formerly Twitter). In the live broadcast, the patient was seen being able to play chess and Civilization VI FOR4D with ‘telepathy’ for a long duration, even up to around eight hours.
The patient was named Noland Arbaugh, a 29 year old man. He is the first human whose brain was implanted with a chip device made by Neuralink. Arbaugh was paralyzed from the neck down after a diving accident eight years ago. In the video, Arbaugh explains that after receiving the implant he had to learn how to distinguish imagined versus attempted movements in order to learn to control a cursor on the screen.
“A lot of the things we started were attempts to move on,” Arbaugh said.
“I would try to move, say, my right hand left, forward, backward. And from there, I think it became intuitive for me to start imagining the cursor moving,” he continued.
Neuralink’s main focus in this trial is giving humans the ability to control a computer cursor or keyboard with just their thoughts. So far Arbaugh says his experience with the brain implant has been positive, despite some initial problems.
“It’s not perfect and I think we’ve hit some bumps. There’s a lot of work to be done, but the Neuralink thing has changed my life,” he said.
The company successfully implanted a chip in its first human patient late last January, after receiving approval for human trial recruitment in September. The research used robots FOR4D to surgically implant brain-computer interfaces in areas of the brain that control the intention to move, Neuralink said, adding that the initial goal was to allow people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts.
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