The very first chip implanted in a human brain by Elon Musk’s company Neuralink has malfunctioned, it has announced.
The tracks connecting the device to the mind of Noland Arbaugh, a paraplegic, “retracted,” reducing the amount of data it could collect.
The device was implanted in an American patient, paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident in January. The chip is about the size of a 50p coin and sits on top of Mr Arbaugh’s head, in a hole drilled into his skull.
It has 64 flexible “wires” that extend through the motor cortex of his brain, allowing him to control devices and play video games using his mind. The company announced Wednesday that the device recently malfunctioned after some wires became removed from its brain, reducing the amount of data it could receive.
In a blog post published Wednesday, Neuralink said the wire failure led to “a net decrease in the number of effective electrodes” and that the device had been adjusted to make it more sensitive.
He said the changes had resulted in a “rapid and sustained improvement” in the number of bits of data the device can transmit per second, and had “now exceeded Noland’s initial performance.”
Mr Arbaugh is the first human patient to receive a brain implant, although the device has also been tested by Neuralink on pigs, sheep and monkeys. In the future, it could be used to enable more paralyzed patients to use computers.
Mr. Arbaugh previously used a tablet and a stylus that he held in his mouth. The stylus prevented him from speaking and could cause sores. After testing the device, he said he managed to beat his friends at computer games – something he previously thought was impossible.
“It’s like luxury overload. I haven’t been able to do these things for eight years and now I don’t even know where to begin my attention,” he said.
On March 20, the company broadcast a live demonstration of Mr. Arbaugh playing chess online. He is able to move a computer cursor by imagining where he would like it to go, he says.
Neuralink experts explored the possibility that the malfunction was caused by a condition known as pneumocephalus, which involves air trapped in the brain potentially caused by the surgery used to implant the device into the skull of Mr. Arbaugh.
It was reported in the Wall Street Journal that the company plans to remove the device in a procedure known as “explantation.”
Neuralink, founded by Musk in 2016, said it hoped to implant ten of these chips in patients this year.
The device was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, despite ethical objections from some experts and reports of animal cruelty at the company during its earlier trials.
The company admitted that some monkeys died during initial tests, but denied accusations of cruelty.
The company said it was “absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible.”
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