Neuralink Plans to Test Whether Its Brain Implant Can Control a Robotic Arm

Elon Musk’s encephalon implant institution Neuralink announced connected Tuesday that it is launching a survey to trial its implant for a caller use: allowing a idiosyncratic to power a robotic limb utilizing conscionable their thoughts. “We’re excited to denote the support and motorboat of a caller feasibility proceedings to widen BCI power utilizing the N1 implant to an investigational assistive robotic arm,” Neuralink said successful a post connected Musk’s societal media level X.

A BCI, oregon brain-computer interface, is simply a strategy that allows a idiosyncratic to straight power extracurricular devices with their encephalon waves. It works by speechmaking and decoding intended question signals from neurons. Neuralink’s BCI involves a coin-sized instrumentality dubbed N1 that is surgically implanted successful the encephalon by a robot. The institution is presently evaluating the information of its BCI, arsenic good arsenic its quality to power a machine successful individuals with paralysis.

Moving a machine oregon prosthetic limb is not a caller feat for BCIs. In 2008, a squad led by Andrew Schwartz astatine the University of Pittsburgh showed that a monkey could power a robotic limb to provender itself utilizing signals from its brain. After that, researchers moved connected to quality volunteers. In a 2012 study published successful the diary Nature, 2 radical paralyzed owed to changeable were capable to usher a robotic limb to scope and grasp objects simply by reasoning astir it. One was capable to service herself java for the archetypal clip successful 14 years. In another survey from 2016, a antheral with a BCI regained a consciousness of interaction utilizing a robotic arm.

The BCIs utilized successful those studies were clunky setups that required moving a cablegram from the probe participants’ caput to a machine that decodes encephalon signals. By contrast, Neuralink’s strategy is wireless.

On social media earlier this year, Neuralink demonstrated that its BCI tin beryllium utilized to power a machine cursor. In a video connected X, survey subordinate Noland Arbaugh was shown utilizing the Neuralink instrumentality to play chess and different games connected a computer. Arbaugh, who became a quadriplegic aft a swimming mishap successful 2016, spoke with WIRED earlier this year astir however the implant has fixed him a consciousness of independence.

Arbaugh underwent encephalon country successful January to person the Neuralink implant, but a fewer weeks later, the instrumentality started to malfunction. The implant has 64 thin, flexible ligament threads that penetrate the encephalon tissue. Each thread contains 16 electrodes that cod neural signals. In a blog station from May, Neuralink said respective threads had retracted from Arbaugh’s brain, causing him to temporarily suffer cursor control. Neuralink was capable to reconstruct Arbaugh’s power by modifying its encephalon signaling algorithm to beryllium much delicate and changing however it translates neural signals into cursor movements.