On Friday local time, Elon Musk, founder of Neurolink, a brain computer interface company, announced that, Following the successful operation of the first patient who participated in the brain machine implantation experiment of the company at the beginning of the year, the recruitment of the second patient who received brain machine implantation was officially started.
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The N1 Implant developed by Neuralink needs to be placed in the user's skull through surgery, so that the implant can operate computers and mobile phones only by "thinking". At present, such devices are mainly used for paralyzed patients. Musk also said that he hopes to expand the indications to people with hearing and vision impairment, and ultimately help "combine human and artificial intelligence". Noland Arbaugh, the first experimenter, said that he now uses the implant for 10-12 hours every day, and only allows it to rest when the device is charged or he sleeps.
According to the agreement between Nolan and Neuralink, he will provide data to the company within one year after implantation of the device, and then they will discuss whether to stop or remove the device in the next step.
But Nolan said that he would prefer to keep the device and upgrade the interface in his mind when the next generation product is ready. Nolan said: "I bet the next person who gets this thing will feel the same as me. Once you try to use it, you can't stop. This device really shocked me."
On Wednesday (May 8) local time, Neuralink, a brain computer interface company owned by Musk, announced that after the first human operation was performed on Noland Arbaugh in January, many mechanical failures occurred to the devices implanted in the patients under test. A few weeks after implantation into the human brain, the thread of some electrode inserts installed in the human brain tissue fell off, causing the device to fail to work properly and the amount of data captured from the brain of the patient under test was reduced. Neuralink did not disclose why some electrode wires unexpectedly contracted.
Musk also said that Neuralink is now trying to get as many mouse button clicks as possible from patients. But Musk did not reveal any more information.
According to the Securities Times, Neuralink said that this research used robot surgery to implant the brain computer interface into the area of the brain that controls the movement intention. The initial goal was to enable humans to control the computer cursor or keyboard with their own thoughts.
Musk has high hopes for the Neuralink project and hopes to treat obesity, autism, depression, schizophrenia and other diseases through this method. In 2023, the valuation of Neuralink will reach about US $5 billion.
Brain computer interface technology is regarded as a cutting-edge technology with great medical potential. In addition to Musk's own traffic attribute, Neuralink has been highly anticipated since it was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical trials in 2023.
According to the Daily Economic News on November 13, 2023, thousands of people waited in line to implant the brain implant of Neuralink, a subsidiary of Musk. The above news was revealed by the biographer Ashley Vance at the end of 2023. It is reported that Neuralink expects its annual revenue to reach 100 million dollars within five years. In early 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Neuralink to conduct human test on its equipment. By September 2023, the company began to recruit volunteers for its first human test.
According to the report of the Daily Business News on December 28, 2023, the concept of brain computer interface originated from the vision of computer scientist Jacques Vidal of the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1973, that is, through the electrodes placed on the scalp, the real-time signals sent by the brain can be detected and translated to control the computer.
It is worth noting that Neuralink's progress is not industry-leading. According to Walter Isaacson, the biographer of Musk, his most concerned opponent is Synchron, whose clinical trial was approved earlier. It is reported that the company has already let six severely paralyzed people use Synchron equipment for simple digital equipment operation in 2023, and will end this round of feasibility test in August 2024.
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