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  • Neuralink Plans to Test Whether Its Brain Implant Can Control a Robotic Arm

    Neuralink Plans to Test Whether Its Brain Implant Can Control a Robotic Arm

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    Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink announced on Tuesday that it is launching a study to test its implant for a new use: allowing a person to control a robotic arm using just their thoughts. “We’re excited to announce the approval and launch of a new feasibility trial to extend BCI control using the N1 implant to an investigational assistive robotic arm,” Neuralink said in a post on Musk’s social media platform X.

    A BCI, or brain-computer interface, is a system that allows a person to directly control outside devices with their brain waves. It works by reading and decoding intended movement signals from neurons. Neuralink’s BCI involves a coin-sized device dubbed N1 that is surgically implanted in the brain by a robot. The company is currently evaluating the safety of its BCI, as well as its ability to control a computer in individuals with paralysis.

    Moving a computer or prosthetic arm is not a new feat for BCIs. In 2008, a team led by Andrew Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh showed that a monkey could control a robotic arm to feed itself using signals from its brain. After that, researchers moved on to human volunteers. In a 2012 study published in the journal Nature, two people paralyzed due to stroke were able to guide a robotic arm to reach and grasp objects simply by thinking about it. One was able to serve herself coffee for the first time in 14 years. In another study from 2016, a man with a BCI regained a sense of touch using a robotic arm.

    The BCIs used in those studies were clunky setups that required running a cable from the research participants’ head to a computer that decodes brain signals. By contrast, Neuralink’s system is wireless.

    On social media earlier this year, Neuralink demonstrated that its BCI can be used to control a computer cursor. In a video on X, study participant Noland Arbaugh was shown using the Neuralink device to play chess and other games on a computer. Arbaugh, who became a quadriplegic after a swimming accident in 2016, spoke with WIRED earlier this year about how the implant has given him a sense of independence.

    Arbaugh underwent brain surgery in January to receive the Neuralink implant, but a few weeks later, the device started to malfunction. The implant has 64 thin, flexible wire threads that penetrate the brain tissue. Each thread contains 16 electrodes that collect neural signals. In a blog post from May, Neuralink said several threads had retracted from Arbaugh’s brain, causing him to temporarily lose cursor control. Neuralink was able to restore Arbaugh’s control by modifying its brain recording algorithm to be more sensitive and changing how it translates neural signals into cursor movements.

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  • Elon Musk Could Have US Citizenship Revoked If He Lied on Immigration Forms

    Elon Musk Could Have US Citizenship Revoked If He Lied on Immigration Forms

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    These questions, says immigration lawyer Ira Kurzban, are asked to see whether an applicant obtained their residence validly, a prerequisite for citizenship. US immigration authorities have, he says, become “very exacting” on this point over the past 10 years.

    The US Citizenship and Immigration Service didn’t respond to an inquiry about whether forms used by its predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, asked exactly these questions at the time Musk would have been using them, but experts say he would have been asked substantively similar questions, as the relevant law hasn’t changed.

    “Those grounds of deportability have been around for decades,” says Yale-Loehr, “and the forms back then probably had similar or identical questions.”

    An immigrant who makes misrepresentations as part of the naturalization process can also face criminal exposure: Under US federal law, making a false statement to or concealing a material fact from the government carries a potential penalty of five years in prison.

    Greg Siskind, a leading immigration attorney, doesn’t disagree that the law as written could expose someone who lied about working without authorization to loss of citizenship, but says that as a practical matter, it may not amount to a material fact.

    “If he had disclosed it, would that have prevented him from getting later immigration benefits?” he asks. “The answer to that is probably no.”

    Siskind nonetheless believes that there are serious questions here about, among other things, the nature of the professional relationship between the Musk brothers. And Musk’s past is highly relevant to the clearances he reportedly holds as a top government contractor with an extensive portfolio of holdings related to national security.

    Even if Musk were found to have violated the law, he would not be summarily deported. “It’s generally quite difficult to revoke someone’s citizenship for relatively minor status violations which occurred decades earlier,” says Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, who adds that this is “a good thing given how easy it can be to violate arcane immigration rules.”

    Under Trump, though, several experts pointed out, the government did far more to denaturalize citizens than it had previously. As Frost wrote in 2019, in the first year and a half of the Trump administration, USCIS opened an office dedicated to denaturalization, investigated thousands of citizens, and reported 95 to the Department of Justice with a recommendation for deportation. (From 1990 to 2017, there was an average of just 11 denaturalization cases per year.)

    Even if USCIS had solid evidence that Musk had broken the law, it would, experts say, not handle the matter administratively, but rather could refer it to a US Attorney’s office. Prosecutors, who have broad discretion to take up or decline cases, could then proceed, or not, as they saw fit.

    Many of the open questions here could be cleared up by Musk authorizing the release of his immigration records under the Freedom of Information Act. His lawyer, Spiro, did not respond to a question asking whether he would do so.

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  • Elon Musk’s Neuralink Had a Brain Implant Setback. It May Come Down to Design

    Elon Musk’s Neuralink Had a Brain Implant Setback. It May Come Down to Design

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    Rather than building a device from the ground up, Synchron and Paradromics have taken inspiration from previous medical devices. Paradromics’ design, for instance, is based on the Utah array but makes some key improvements. It’s wireless, for one, and it has 421 electrodes on the end of tiny wires that sit in the brain tissue. Those wires are all much smaller than the shanks of the Utah array, Angle says.

    Synchron’s device, meanwhile, is a hollow mesh tube that resembles a heart stent. Instead of going into the brain directly, it’s inserted into the jugular vein at the base of the neck and pushed up against the cortex. Synchron has implanted 10 participants with its device so far, with one surpassing three years with it. (Arbaugh’s implant is still working after 100 days). Banerjee says the company has not seen a decline in signal quality or performance yet.

    Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh who builds brain-computer interfaces, also speculates that Neuralink’s design may have caused the implanted threads to push out of the brain.

    The brain’s outermost layer of the brain, the dura, needs to be opened in order to place the device. “With multiple wires being inserted individually into the cortex, it may be difficult to suture the dura closed after implanting the wires,” he says. Leaving this opening could have caused scar tissue to form around the opening, leading the threads to withdraw. The Utah array, Schwartz says, is designed so that the dura can be sutured closed after implantation.

    Despite Neuralink’s setback, the company still managed to live stream a demonstration of its device on March 20, showing Arbaugh using the implant to play chess just by thinking about it. Arbaugh has also used the device to play the video game Mario Kart. “I just can’t even describe how cool it is to be able to do this,” he said in the video.

    In the blog post, Neuralink says it compensated for the lost threads by modifying the recording algorithm to be more sensitive to neural signals. It also says it improved how it translated those signals into cursor movements and enhanced its user interface, and that these changes were able to boost the performance of the device.

    For moving a cursor, Angle says having more electrodes doesn’t matter all that much. But for more complex tasks, such as turning text to speech, a higher data rate will be important.

    Prior to getting the implant, Arbaugh used a mouth-held stylus, known as a mouth stick, to operate a tablet that had to be put in place by a caregiver. A mouth stick can only be used in an upright position, and it prevents normal speech. When it’s used for long periods of time, it can cause discomfort, muscle fatigue, and pressure sores.

    For Arbaugh, Neuralink’s device is “luxury overload,” according to the company’s blog post. He’s still using the implant, which has allowed him to “reconnect with the world” and do things on his own again without needing his family at all hours of the day and night.

    “It’s good that the patient can still use the device and he’s still happy with it. At the end of the day, that’s a win,” Angle says. “But from our perspective, companies that are building brain computer interfaces need to be building devices that will be robust and reliable over a multi-year timeframe.”

    There are likely to be setbacks on the road toward commercializing brain-computer interfaces, and with Neuralink taking a unique approach with its device, the company could be in for more bumps along the way.



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  • We Finally Know Where Neuralink’s Brain Implant Trial Is Happening

    We Finally Know Where Neuralink’s Brain Implant Trial Is Happening

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    Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink has chosen the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, as the initial study site to test its Telepathy device.

    The first participant in Neuralink’s study, Noah Arbaugh, underwent a successful procedure at the institute in January to get the device implanted. Known as a brain-computer interface, or BCI, the technology is meant to translate brain signals into commands that control a computer or other external device. Neuralink’s goal is to enable individuals with paralysis to use a cursor or keyboard with just their thoughts.

    In March, Arbaugh demonstrated his ability to use the system in a short livestream on the social media platform X. A diving accident eight years ago left Arbaugh paralyzed from the shoulders down. In the video, he’s shown using a computer to play online chess. He said he also uses the Neuralink interface to play the video game Civilization.

    “We chose to partner with Barrow based on their extensive expertise in caring for patients with complex neurological conditions,” Neuralink said in a recent blog post. Barrow put out its own press release announcing the partnership as well. The institute has more than 300 active clinical trials currently underway and performs around 6,000 neurosurgeries a year. When reached via email, a Barrow spokesperson said the institute is not conducting interviews at this time. Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment.

    Neuralink has been criticized for not publishing any peer-reviewed research or listing its study on ClinicalTrials.gov, an online repository for research involving human subjects. Updates about the trial have instead emerged from social media posts by Neuralink or by Musk himself, who cofounded the company. The company did publish a brochure last fall that provides some details about the study, including basic information on how the device works and who is eligible to participate. The trial site announcement, Arbaugh’s livestreamed demonstration, and Neuralink’s recent blog post fill in some of those gaps.

    The study will evaluate the safety and initial effectiveness of the Neuralink device. It’s open to adults with quadriplegia due to vertical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis who are 22 or older and have a caregiver. An initial assessment of the safety and usability of Neuralink’s system will be submitted to the FDA in the coming months, according to the Barrow statement.

    According to Neuralink’s brochure, the study will take approximately six years to complete. A surgical robot developed by Neuralink will install the implant in a region of the brain that controls movement intention. The coin-sized implant reads neural activity from 1,024 electrodes distributed across 64 threads. Those signals are wirelessly sent to a device running Neuralink’s software, which then decodes them into movements.

    Neuralink has launched a patient registry for paralyzed people who are interested in learning whether they qualify for the study. The company says it is still in the early stages of the study and plans to provide additional updates on Arbaugh and future participants.

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  • The Next Frontier for Brain Implants Is Artificial Vision

    The Next Frontier for Brain Implants Is Artificial Vision

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    Brian Bussard has 25 tiny chips in his brain. They were installed in February 2022 as part of a study testing a wireless device designed to produce rudimentary vision in blind people. Bussard is the first participant.

    Bussard, who’s 56, lost vision in his left eye at age 17 after his retina detached. The right eye followed in 2016, leaving him completely blind. He remembers the exact moment it happened. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through,” he says. Eventually, he learned to adapt.

    In 2021, he heard about a trial of a visual prosthesis at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Researchers cautioned that the device was experimental and he shouldn’t expect to regain the level of vision he had before. Still, he was intrigued enough to sign up. Thanks to the chips in his brain, Bussard now has very limited artificial vision—what he describes as “blips on a radar screen.” With the implant, he can perceive people and objects represented in white and iridescent dots.

    Bussard is one of a small number of blind individuals around the world who have risked brain surgery to get a visual prosthesis. In Spain, researchers at Miguel Hernández University have implanted four people with a similar system. The trials are the culmination of decades of research.

    There’s interest from industry, too. California-based Cortigent is developing the Orion, which has been implanted in six volunteers. Elon Musk’s Neuralink is also working on a brain implant for vision. In an X post in March, Musk said Neuralink’s device, called Blindsight, is “already working in monkeys.” He added: “Resolution will be low at first, like early Nintendo graphics, but ultimately may exceed normal human vision.”

    That last prediction is unlikely, considering vision is such a complex process. There are huge technical barriers to improving the quality of what people are able to see with a brain implant. Yet even generating rudimentary sight could provide blind individuals with greater independence in their everyday lives.

    “This is not about getting biological vision back,” says Philip Troyk, a professor of biomedical engineering at Illinois Tech, who’s leading the study Bussard is in. “This is about exploring what artificial vision could be.”

    When light hits the eye, it first passes through the cornea and the lens, the outer and middle layers of the eye. When light reaches the back of the eye—the retina—cells there called photoreceptors convert it into electrical signals. These electrical signals travel through the optic nerve to the brain, which interprets those signals as the images we see.

    Without an intact retina or optic nerve, the eyes can’t communicate with the brain. This is the case for many people with total blindness. The types of devices that Troyk and Neuralink are building bypass the eye and optic nerve completely, sending information straight to the brain. Because of this, they have the potential to address any cause of blindness, whether due to eye disease or trauma.

    The specific brain region that processes information received from the eyes is called the visual cortex. Its location at the back of the head makes it easily accessible for an implant. To place the 25 chips in Bussard’s brain, surgeons performed a routine craniotomy to remove a piece of his skull.



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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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