Elon Musk’s Neuralink has been working on a neural interface chip that allows people to control and interact with their devices using their brains and would also help cure various neurological conditions. This tech was first demonstrated last year in August when it was implanted into pigs to show how Neuralink interacts with their brain signals.
The company shared a blog post including a video that showed a nine-year-old macaque named Pager, playing pong using the chip implanted in him which was paired to an iPhone. Pager was given a joystick to train and play which is then removed later on as Pager controls the game using his mind thanks to Neuralink successfully predicting his moves using machine learning algorithms.
The N1 Link chipset boasts 1,024 electrodes and is a fully implanted neural recording and data transmission device. It was implanted in the “hand and arm areas of the motor cortex, a part of the brain that is involved in planning and executing movements,” The company stated. “We placed Links bilaterally: one in the left motor cortex (which controls movements of the right side of the body) and another in the right motor cortex (which controls the left side of the body).”
Musk also claims that later versions of this chip will “be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in the brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again.”
Though these claims are fairly ambitious and bold, they should be taken with a grain of salt as there is much research to be done, including human trials.
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