Owner of X (formerly Twitter), CEO of Tesla, of Space X… One thing is certain, Elon Musk has more than one string to his bow and is always thirsty for new things. It is also in this continuity that a new company was born: Neuralink, a neurotechnology company. Although we had heard about this project for a few years now, it was only recently that the very first man was able to receive the Neuralink brain implant. But then what is it for?
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Neuralink: a first patient implanted
In order to test his brand new invention, Elon Musk went in search of volunteers who would be willing to try the Neuralink brain implant. On X, thousands of applications have accumulated. However, it was Noland Arbaugh, a quadriplegic, who won the “honor” of being able to have the implant first.
And to test this implant, what could be better than a game of chess? Yes, but not just any chess game, since this is only played with thought. A huge step forward, especially since Noland Arbaugh later even played Mario Kart : he finished second against a Neuralink employee.
A revolutionary brain implant
As you will have understood, the Neuralink brain implant makes it possible to control devices (computers, laptops, etc.) only with thought. In any case, this is what Elon Musk hopes over time. Today, he says that Nolan Arbaugh is capable of “control a computer mouse, to move it across a screen simply by thought.”
In fact, the case of Noland Arbaugh is therefore incredible progress because subsequently, it could contribute to better understand neuronal activities and how the brain functions. Furthermore, this would perhaps allow millions of paralyzed people around the world to be able to do everyday things that they could not before, only with thought. In any case, this is what the latter thinks:
“This is going to sound really crazy, but the implant makes the paralysis really not that bad. […] This implant will probably make people like me more independent than they can ever be. And I even think that recovery is possible.”
Source :Neuralink: the first patient who received the brain implant testifies in video (futura-sciences.com)
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