Elon Musk’s Neuralink implant suffers setback after wires retract from patient’s brain

Elon Musk Brain technology startup Neuralink said Wednesday that a problem arose with the company’s first human brain implant weeks after it was inserted into a patient.

The company revealed in a blog post that in the weeks following the patient surgery in Januaryseveral of the implant’s connective wires retracted from the brain, causing a reduction in signals that could be captured by the device.

Neuralink provided few other details about the problem and did not reveal what may have caused the wires to retract.

The company said, however, that it modified an algorithm “to be more sensitive to signals from the neural population,” meaning it was able to improve how the patient’s brain signals were detected and translated.

Neuralink’s first human patient, 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh, lost all movement and sensation in his arms and legs after a diving accident in 2016.

Neuralink N1 Device It is approximately the size of a quarter and is designed to be fully implanted in the skull. The device is connected to the brain’s motor cortex via 64 ultra-thin wires with tiny electrodes that capture the patient’s neural signals.

It is unknown whether the retracted wires posed any safety concerns for Arbaugh at the time.

In March, the company hosted a live stream during which Arbaugh moved the cursor across a laptop screen and played online chess using only your thoughts. In other videos released by the company, Arbaugh appeared playing the Mario Kart racing video game with the brain chip.

The latest update comes less than a week after Neuralink co-founder Dr. Benjamin Rapoport suggested on a May 3 episode of Wall Street Journal “The Future of Everything” Podcast that he left the company for security reasons.

Rapoport, a neurosurgeon, co-founded Neuralink with Musk and other scientists in 2016 but later left to found a new company called Precision Neuroscience.

“I have dedicated practically my entire professional life to bringing neural interfaces from the world of science to the world of medicine. But I feel that to advance into the world of medicine and technology, safety is paramount,” he said on the podcast.

It was not the first time the company faced controversy. Activist groups and complaints from internal employees have alleged that Neuralink mistreated some of the animals used in experiments. A federal investigation found no evidence of any violations other than an “adverse surgical event” in 2019 that the company itself reported, according to Reuters.

Neuralink received approval last year from the Food and Drug Administration to conduct its first human clinical study. The company is developing a brain implant that would allow people, including patients with severe paralysis, to control a computer, phone or other external device using their thoughts.

This article was originally published in NBCNews. with