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Tag: brain-computer interfaces

  • Meet the Designer Behind Neuralink’s Surgical Robot

    Meet the Designer Behind Neuralink’s Surgical Robot

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    As a designer, what safety considerations did you have to think about with the Neuralink device?

    The primary safety considerations weren’t so much on the device but on the robot. We had a small role to play, which was to psychologically transform their first-generation robot, which was exposed steel—you could argue it looked pretty ominous—to something that was a little bit more approachable and ready for clinical trials.

    We worked with Neuralink’s engineering team to try and design facias—covers or cladding—for the outside of the robot, to start to give it a bit more of a visual language that was simple, approachable, and something that you can imagine people not being intimidated by. In that process, we were starting to introduce a lot more elements of design, and the safety concern wasn’t so much for the patients, it was for the operators.

    We thought about things like pinch points. You don’t want people crushing their hands while they’re operating the system. That’s Robotics 101. It’s what every designer who’s designing robots has to think about. These machines are pretty powerful, and when they want to go to a specific location, they’ll go there, and if your finger gets in between where it is and where it’s going, it’s going to be pretty dangerous.

    How did the design of the robot evolve over time?

    The robot design was a very collaborative process. It’s obviously a super-complicated robot, and so our design team came in to work closely with their mechanical engineers to understand the surgical process.

    We started with the part of the robot that has the needle and is doing the actual insertion of the neural threads [which record brain activity], because it’s the most sensitive constraint, and we kind of worked backwards from there. We spent a period of time with them designing the part of the robot that interfaces with your head. We had to understand all the ways that you’d have to assemble it to cover up the existing system underneath it.

    We then moved on to the rest of the robotic body, and we were able to develop the body in parallel with their internal electromechanical design team. We were able to order the units to be fabricated, and then we worked with them to assemble it. From there, they’ve taken it and done further internal testing.

    What interests you about designing neurotech devices?

    I’m always inspired by the people doing work in this space in terms of founders, scientists, technologists, neuroscientists, and personally it’s just really cool that the feat of this technology is unlocking big philosophical questions about how the brain works and what it means to be human. I think that’s super cool.

    You’ve worked with other brain device companies. Are there particular use cases for neurotech that really excite you?

    The field is focusing on the most vulnerable right now, which is inspiring. The immediate attention is on how to help people who need help the most, such as those who are paralyzed, and the problems that are being solved are very direct. I think seeing more work being done on these problems with AI, having the AI solve those very practical problems, is what I’m the most excited about right now.

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  • Watch Neuralink’s First Human Subject Demonstrate His Brain-Computer Interface

    Watch Neuralink’s First Human Subject Demonstrate His Brain-Computer Interface

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    On Wednesday, Neuralink introduced the first human subject to receive the company’s brain implant, a 29-year-old man who has been paralyzed from the shoulders down for eight years after a diving accident.

    In a brief livestream on the social media platform X, the man introduced himself as Noland Arbaugh, and said he’s able to play online chess and the video game Civilization using the Neuralink device. “If y’all can see the cursor moving around the screen, that’s all me,” he said during the livestream as he moved a digital chess piece. “It’s pretty cool, huh?”

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    Neuralink, which was cofounded in 2016 by billionaire Elon Musk, is developing a system known as a brain-computer interface, which decodes movement intention from brain signals. The company’s initial goal is to allow paralyzed people to control a cursor or keyboard using just their thoughts.

    The company received a greenlight from the US Food and Drug Administration last year to move ahead with an initial human trial and began recruiting paralyzed participants in the fall to test the device.

    Up until now, Neuralink has revealed few details about the progress of that study. In an X post in January, Musk announced that the first human subject had received Neuralink’s implant and was “recovering well.” In February, he said that the person had recovered and was able to control a computer mouse using their thoughts.

    “Progress is good and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware of,” Musk said on February 19 in a Spaces audio conversation on X, in response to a question about the participant’s condition. “[The] patient is able to move a mouse around the screen just by thinking.”

    Some neuroscientists and ethicists have criticized Neuralink’s previous lack of transparency around the trial. What’s known about Neuralink’s study comes from social media posts and a brief brochure the company published last year.

    Neuralink has not revealed the number of subjects that will be enrolled in the study, the trial site, or outcomes that will be assessed. And the company has not registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, a government repository that contains information on medical studies involving human subjects.

    This is a developing story, please check back for updates.



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  • Your Next Job: Brain-Computer Interface Surgeon

    Your Next Job: Brain-Computer Interface Surgeon

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    There’s a lot to like about brain-computer interfaces, those sci-fi-sounding devices that jack into your skull and turn neural signals into software commands. Experimental BCIs help paralyzed people communicate, use the internet, and move prosthetic limbs. In recent years, the devices have even gone wireless. If mind-reading computers become part of everyday life, we’ll need doctors to install the tiny electrodes and transmitters that make them work. So if you have steady hands and don’t mind a little blood, being a BCI surgeon might be a job for you.

    Shahram Majidi, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, began operating in clinical trials for a BCI called the Stentrode in 2022. (That’s “stent” as in a tube that often sits inside a vein or artery.) Here he talks about a not-too-distant future where he’s performing hundreds of similar procedures a year.

    Brain-computer interfaces have been around for a few decades, and there are different kinds of implants now. Some have electrodes attached to your brain with wires sticking out of your head and connecting to a computer. I think that’s great as a proof of concept, but it requires an engineer sitting there and a big computer next to you all the time. You can’t just use it in your bedroom. The beauty of a BCI like the Stentrode, which is what I’ve worked with, is that nothing is sticking out of your brain. The electrodes are in blood vessels next to the brain, and you get there by going through the patient’s jugular. The receiver is underneath the skin in their chest and connected to a device that decodes the brain signals via Bluetooth. I think that’s the future.

    It’s a minimally invasive surgery. You don’t have to open the skull. You don’t have to violate the anatomy of the brain. Deploying a stent into a blood vessel in the brain is something I’ve done thousands of times for other procedures, but this time I’m deploying a device that will record specific signals coming from a very specific location of the brain. For it to work correctly, I’ll have to make the most precise delivery of an implant I’ve ever learned to do. From the time we enter the room to when we have finished surgery and checked the device, it’s usually less than three hours.

    The patients we enroll in these trials are severely disabled. They’re paralyzed from diseases like ALS. They’re bedbound; even bringing them to the hospital could be a monumental task. So I’ve been able to visit all my BCI patients in their homes to talk about the device and how it works. It’s an exciting moment for the patients and their families, but you also have to set expectations.

    The surgical planning that goes into a BCI implant is very sophisticated compared to other daily procedures that I do as a neurosurgeon. Before the surgery, my team and I practice on a model to make sure we understand all the steps and protocols. Literally, the room for mistakes is very, very narrow. (Neuralink is building robots to install their BCIs, but I’m not worried about robots coming for my job. You’re always going to need human surgeons and scientists to advance the field and do precise procedures.)

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