2024-08-22 09:55:57
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After suffering from a spinal cord injury that left him without the use of his limbs, Alex is the second patient to receive a brain chip designed by Elon Musk’s startup.
A new achievement for the brain chip developed by Neuralink, the startup founded by American businessman Elon Musk. A certain Alex, paralyzed due to a spinal cord injury, is the second patient to benefit from a brain implant, also known as a brain-computer interface (BCI), designed by the company. A device the size of a coin that now allows him to… play video games again.
It is on his blog that Musk’s company reports this moving progress. Before his accident, Alex used to play a lot of the famous video game Counter-Strike 2. A habit he tried to maintain despite his paralysis, using Quadstick, a mouth-operated game controller with mouth pressure sensors, accompanied by a lip position sensor to click. But, as Neuralink explains, “the device only has one joystick, which often prevents Alex from moving or aiming when he wishes.” This problem is now resolved: the chip recently implanted by Neuralink in Alex’s brain, which works in concert with Quadstick, allows him to move and aim simultaneously in the video game.
A more successful operation than that of the first patient
That’s not all. Thanks to the chip, Alex can also create 3D objects using computer-aided design software. Just two days after his implant, he managed to design a holder for his Neuralink charger, which was later 3D printed. This success is all the more remarkable as Alex worked as an auto technician before his spinal cord injury. “We hope that over time, the Link will help many people create in their areas of interest and expertise, and we look forward to working with others to help them reconnect with their passions,” wrote Neuralink.
This second operation, performed at the Barrow Neurological Institute, is therefore a resounding success. On August 5, Elon Musk announced the implantation of the Link chip in Alex’s brain on X, assuring that the operation had gone “extremely well.” For comparison, the previous patient who received the chip, a certain Noland Arbaugh, did not have a straightforward experience: the wires of the implant had retracted into his brain. Nothing of the sort happened with Alex, as a “number of measures” have been put in place to prevent such an accident, claims the startup. And, with these successes, Neuralink has no intention of stopping there. After the virtual realm, it aims to enable its implant to interact with the physical world, so that patients can move and navigate more autonomously by controlling a robotic arm or their wheelchair.
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