Earlier in January, the BCI had been implanted into a 29 year old patient named Nolan Arbaugh’s brain. BCI enables paralysis patients exercise control using external technology. Arbaugh who has been paralyzed from his shoulder due to a diving accident which happened eight years ago became a participant in Neuralink’s six-year trial to test the chip’s safety.
How does Neuralink’s BCI work?
The BCI chip containing 1024 small electrodes across 64 threads is implanted directly into the brain through a robotic device. This enables it to provide a clear signal without any major distortion. It is built to gather data from the human brain and send it back to a computerized system which then decodes it to transform thoughts into action.
In a normal human being, voluntary actions such as raising one’s hand or walking is done in the following manner. The individual thinks about it, this sends a signal to the brain which then activates the concerned limb/organ to perform the action. This is carried out through a well established and elaborate system of the nervous system.
In the case of a patient who has paralysis, their nervous system is affected and this affects the transmission of messages from the body to the brain and vice versa. It is here that BCI’s role assumes significance. An external computer system assumes the role of a brain and transmits and receives messages through a chip.
What happened in Neuralink’s case?
A blog post by the company revealed that a number of threads retracted from the patient’s brain and this led to a decrease in number of effective electrodes. This resulted in Neuralink being unable to measure the effectiveness of the chip. The company has modified the recording algorithm to perform better.
FAQs:
Q1. What is the cost of Neuralink’s BCI Chip?
A1. As per conservative estimates, it costs $10,500. This includes in exams, parts and labor. Q2. Is Neuralink’s BCI available in India?
A2. Presently it is available only in the US and Canada. Any citizen of these two countries who have attained the age of 18 and are eligible to give consent will be eligible to participate in this experiment.
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