A Neuralinka brain implant company Elon Muskadmitted having had problems with the device inserted into his first human patient. In the first few weeks after successfully implanting the chip into patient Noland Arbaugh, a 29-year-old quadriplegic, several wires “retracted” from his brain, “resulting in a decrease in the number of effective electrodes,” the company said in its blog on Wednesday the 8th.
With the reduced number of electrodes in direct contact with the patient’s brain tissue, the system, called Link, had difficulty measuring the number of bits per second during sessions with Arbaugh, who tested the implant by moving a cursor and playing video games with ” the power of thought.”
The company did not reveal how many of the 1,024 electrodes spread across 64 wires had retracted from the patient’s brain tissue.
“In response to this change, we modified the recording algorithm to be more sensitive to signals from the neural population, improved the techniques for translating these signals into cursor movements, and improved the user interface,” explained Neuralink, on its blog. With this, the company was able to maintain the implant reading even with the reduced number of wires, without the need to remove it.
According to the The Wall Street Journal, one factor that may have contributed to the wires being removed is that air became trapped inside Arbaugh’s skull after surgery, a condition called pneumocephalus. Experts consulted by the Bloomberg state that complications may have arisen as a result of brain movement within the intracranial space.
Despite the setback, Arbaugh has managed to use the system for around eight hours a day during the week and up to 10 hours on weekends, interacting with digital interfaces using only his brain.
The implant problem was revealed at a time when Neuralink is trying to implant its device in more human patients, which could cause delays in the approval process by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
