In a setback for Elon Musk's brain technology company Neuralink, the device it implanted in its first human patient has experienced mechanical problems, the company wrote in a blog post.
In the weeks after patient Noland Arbaugh's January surgery, some of the wires with electrodes that sit in brain tissue began pulling away from that tissue, the company said, causing the device to malfunction correctly
The Wall Street Journal previously reported news of the malfunction.
Neuralink said it compensated for this retraction through a series of software fixes, which “produced a rapid and sustained improvement that has now superseded Noland's initial performance.”
The company said it is currently working on improving text input for the device, as well as cursor control, and eventually aims to expand to use with physical-world devices such as robotic arms and wheelchairs.
People who work in the field of brain implants said the complications may have arisen from the fact that the wires are attached to a device that is inside the skull bone, rather than on the surface of brain tissue. “One thing that engineers and scientists don't appreciate is how much the brain moves within the intracranial space,” said Eric Leuthardt, a neurosurgeon at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “Just nodding your head or moving it abruptly can cause perturbations of several millimeters.”
Traditionally, surgeons have placed brain implants directly on the brain tissue itself, where they move “like a boat on water,” said Matt Angle, chief executive of rival brain implant company Paradromics Inc. Having wires that retract “is not normal for a brain implant,” he said.
Before implanting the device in Arbaugh, a quadriplegic, Neuralink had extensively tested the device in animals. One potential problem, however, is that because animal brains are smaller, the electrodes don't move as much as they do in humans, Leuthardt said.
The report comes as Neuralink looks to implant its device in more human subjects. Any malfunction could cause delays in the Food and Drug Administration's approval process.
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