The first brain chip that Neuralink embedded into a human brain has malfunctioned. The neuron-surveilling threads appear to have become dislodged from the participant’s brain, the company revealed in a blog post.
The first implantation took place in January 2024 in 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh, who developed quadriplegia after a 2016 diving accident. The surgery was performed at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. Initial results were promising, with Arbaugh recovering well and even playing video games using only his implant.
However, problems began in late February. An unknown number of threads have become displaced in Arbaugh’s brain. It’s unclear what caused the threads to become “retracted” from the brain, how many have retracted, or if the displaced threads pose a safety risk. One hypothesis is that there was air trapped inside Arbaugh’s skull after the surgery, a condition called pneumocephalus.
Neuralink has been able to compensate for the lost data to some extent by modifying its algorithm. The company’s invasive implant includes 64 flexible threads carrying a total of 1,024 electrodes that can detect neuronal activity. These flexible threads, thinner than a human hair, are inserted individually into the brain by the company’s proprietary surgical robot.
The goal is for the threads to be placed near neurons of interest so that signals detected by the electrodes can be recorded and decoded into intended actions, such as moving a cursor on a computer screen.
Read more: arstechnica.com