I’ve Elon Musk’s mind chip and may management computer systems with my thoughts

The first patient living with Elon Musk‘s Neuralink ‘brain chip’ implant wants the world to know how ‘amazing’ and ‘rewarding’ his clinical trial with the tech has been.

Just four months ago, 30-year-old Noland Arbaugh went under the knife for the experimental surgery that would allow him to control computers with his mind.

‘I’m really excited to keep going,’ Arbaugh, who has been paralyzed from his neck’s fourth vertebra down since college, said of his role in Neuralink’s human trial.

But while the tech company’s brain-computer interface has allowed him to race his stepfather in Nintendo’s Mario Kart, navigate a computer cursor and more — all with just his thoughts alone — technical hurdles still plague the brain chip’s functioning.

A report on Arbaugh’s Neuralink trial said that approximately 85 percent of the chip’s tendril-like connections to his brain have come loose, forcing Neuralink staff to retool the system on its software side, as FDA approves trials on a second patient. 

According to Arbaugh, who told his story to the New York Times, his brain’s natural movements, floating in the ‘cerebrospinal fluid’ that protects it from injury, has slid these electrode-like connections loose over time.

However, Neuralink sources told the Wall Street Journal the malfunction may have resulted from air becoming trapped in his skull during surgery: a condition known as pneumocephalus that can cause seizures, brain abscess and death if untreated.

The report claimed that the condition caused the threads to detach, which almost led to the implant being removed. 

But Musk’s company revealed this month that it plans to implant with threads that go deeper into the brain for its second human patient, plans that have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

Neuralink’s brain-computer interface consists of a computer chip attached to tiny flexible threads that are stitched into the brain via a ‘sewing-machine-like’ robot.

Aided by medical professionals and the firm’s staff, the robot removes a small chunk of the skull, connects these thread-like electrodes to certain areas of the brain, and stitches up the hole — with the only visible remains being a scar from the incision.

Musk has said that this procedure takes just 30 minutes, will not require general anesthesia, and patients will be able to return home on the same day.

But Northwestern University neuroscientist Dr Lee Miller noted that the brain’s immune defenses have also posed challenges for brain chip implants like Neuralink.

Researchers, Dr Miller said, have seen brains grow scar tissue surrounding sensor implants, inhibiting the chip’s connectivity among other issues. 

Brains have even rejected whole units that were connected to the brain by a grid of tiny needles, according to Dr Miller, who researchers rehabilitative medicine.

Although Neuralink’s software fixes required Arbaugh to learn new methods of clicking and navigating his cursor on a computer screen, the Arizona resident said it was a still an improvement over life before Neuralink.

In the years after he became paralyzed by a swimming accident, Arbaugh had tried a variety of devices that ultimately failed to provide a long-term solution for his mobility needs. 

Prior to Neuralink, Apple’s voice assistant Siri on Arbaugh’s iPad had proven to be the most reliable method to compose text-based written messages, call his friends and perform other life tasks. 

After the Neuralink implant was installed this January, and following an intense training period with the company’s staff, Arbaugh managed to break a 2017 world record for speed and precision while controlling a computer cursor with his mind.

‘I was like, once you guys take these restraints off me, I’m just gonna fly,’ Arbaugh remembered. ‘It was very, very cool.’

While he said that the loss of 85 percent of this interconnectivity with the brain implant has been difficult and disappointing, he emphasized that he is proud to play a role in the improvement of these breakthrough medical technologies.

‘I just want to bring everyone along this journey with me,’ Arbaugh said, adding that he hopes Neuralink and similar devices will one day help to others regain their lost speech, sight or movement.

One neurophysiologist, Dr Cristin Welle — who helped to start the FDA program that that reviews medical devices like implants for approval — said that Neuralink’s plans to install deeper connections between their chips and the human brain may run into other biological obstacles.

Dr Welle, who works at the University of Colorado, said that deeper tendril-threads may still slide out of place or even rub along the surface of the brain, where they might potentially increase the amount of scar tissue formed — increasing the signal loss between the brain and the chip, among other possible health issues.

Neuralink’s soft, connective thread design, she suggested, may need to go back to the drawing board. 

‘It may be the case that a fully flexible device may not be a long-term solution,’ Dr Welle said. ‘It’s hard to know.’

Regardless, Neuralink’s first-ever human patient still has high hopes for the implant’s future, saying that he looks forward to wider, more science-fictional applications of brain-computer interfaces after the tech has helped those most in need.

‘Then it can go to enabling people to enhance their capabilities,’ Arbaugh said, ‘as long as we don’t give up our humanity along the way.’