2024-05-12 03:23:47
Earlier this year, 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh was surgically implanted with the N1 device, which the company aims to create a brain-computer interface that allows people to control devices with just their thoughts.
Himself the implant consists of more than 1000 electrodes, connected into 64 “threads” thinner than a human hair for the transmission of neuronal signals. The robot surgically attached flexible threads to the brain’s motor cortex, the area of the brain associated with voluntary movements.
It was these “threads” that were the source of the problem.
“Several weeks after surgery, a number of sutures became detached from the brain, reducing the net number of effective electrodes,” according to a Neuralink blog post. As a result, the ability to control the computer’s pointer with just your mind reduced speed and accuracy, measured in bits per second (BPS).
Although The Wall Street Journal reportedthat Neuralink considered removing the implant, a problem the company says it has now overcome by changing the algorithm involved in recording neural signals and how those signals are then translated into cursor movements.
According to Neuralink, these changes resulted in “a rapid and sustained improvement in BPS that now exceeds Arbaugh’s original results.”
The implant’s capabilities were first demonstrated to the general public in March, when Arbaugh took part in a live demonstration on the social network X. During the broadcast, a man who is paralyzed from the shoulders down was able to control a cursor and play a game of chess.
“I love playing chess and that’s one of the things you all have given me the chance to do. “I haven’t been able to do much the last few years — especially not like I’m doing now,” Arbaugh said at the time. – I had to use my mouth [prietaisu]and now I do everything with my brain.”
Neuralink founder Elon Musk compared the action to “telepathy.”
However, the study was not without controversy. Shortly after receiving approval for human trials from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Neuralink’s animal research facility was subject to a federal investigation many problems emergedwrites IFL Science.
2024-05-12 03:23:47