Source: Wall Street See
Musk also revealed that Neuralink hopes to implant its device into patients with "high digit" this year. Earlier, Neuralink said that the surgery on the first patient went smoothly, but in the weeks following the surgery, some of the wires retracted from the patient's brain. The media reported that this problem did not pose a direct threat to the patient's safety.
Musk said on Wednesday that his brain-computer interface company, Neuralink, hopes to implant its system into a second human patient in about a week. In addition, he revealed that the company hopes to implant its device into patients with "high digit" this year. It is not yet clear when and where these surgeries will take place.
Neuralink is developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) designed to help paralyzed patients control technology devices such as phones or computers with their minds. The company's first system, Telepathy, focuses on 64 wires that are directly inserted into the brain. These wires are thinner than human hair and record neural signals through 1024 electrodes.
The academic community has been studying BCI for decades. There are some other companies also developing their own systems. Currently, no BCI company has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for commercializing their devices.
In January of this year, as part of a clinical trial approved by the FDA, Neuralink implanted its BCI into its first human patient, Noland Arbaugh, who is 29 years old.
Neuralink said the surgery went smoothly in April this year. However, in the weeks following the surgery, some of the wires of the implant retracted from the patient's brain. The media reported that Neuralink had considered removing the implant, but this problem did not pose a direct threat to the patient's safety.
Musk and Neuralink executives said on Wednesday that only about 15% of the channels in the implant of the first patient work properly. Nevertheless, he still uses BCI to watch videos, read, play chess, and play other electronic games, with weekly usage time sometimes as long as 70 hours.
Neuralink executives said the company is making adjustments to try to reduce hardware issues encountered by the first participant. For the upcoming implants, the company said it is working to reduce the retraction and conduct closer measurements:
One of their planned approaches is to sculpt the surface of the skull to minimize the gap under the implant.
Neuralink also plans to insert some wires deeper into the brain tissue and track the movement that occurs. The head of neurosurgery at Neuralink said that since the company knows that retraction is possible, they will insert the wires at different depths.
Editor/Lambor