American Noland Arbaugh carries a chip in his skull. He underwent surgery at the end of January and since then his life has been under the scrutiny of the media.
The Wall Street Journal now reported that the functionality of Arbaugh’s chip began to deteriorate about a month after the procedure. However, the patient’s health condition remained good.
Musk’s company implanted a chip in a person’s brain
Science and schools
The implants work by inserting a small container with a computing chip and battery into the person’s skull during surgery. The device then connects 64 fine fibers to the brain tissue, which interact with the nerve signals sent by the brain. This will allow, for example, to control the keyboard or the mouse cursor. Thanks to the chip, Arbaugh could play a game of chess on a computer using only his mind.
It is the connection by said fine fibers that has now turned out to be a problem. Several fibers began to disconnect from the brain on their own.
Neuralink wrote on its blog that they “retracted from the brain, resulting in a net reduction in the number of effective electrodes.” This decreased the information transfer rate, which is a measure of how well the implant can perform its tasks.
This is a crucial project for Neuralink precisely because it is the first patient to receive a chip from Musk’s company. This year, the company plans to perform eleven interventions, and by the end of the decade, their number should increase to more than 20,000.
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“Telepathy”. The first paralyzed patient with Musk’s brain chip plays chess
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