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First human brain implant malfunctioned, Neuralink says (thehill.com)

submitted 6 months ago by AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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The first Neuralink implant in a human malfunctioned after several threads recording neural activity retracted from the brain, the Elon Musk-owned startup revealed Wednesday.

The threads retracted in the weeks following the surgery in late January that placed the Neuralink hardware in 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh’s brain, the company said in a blog post.

This reduced the number of effective electrodes and the ability of Arbaugh, a quadriplegic, to control a computer cursor with his brain.

“In response to this change, we modified the recording algorithm to be more sensitive to neural population signals, improved the techniques to translate these signals into cursor movements, and enhanced the user interface,” Neuralink said in the blog post.

The company said the adjustments resulted in a “rapid and sustained improvement” in bits-per-second, a measure of speed and accuracy of cursor control, surpassing Arbaugh’s initial performance.

While the problem doesn’t appear to pose a risk to Arbaugh’s safety, Neuralink reportedly floated the idea of removing his implant, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The company has also told the Food and Drug Administration that it believes it has a solution for the issue that occurred with Arbaugh’s implant, the Journal reported.

The implant was placed just more than 100 days ago. In the blog post, the company touted Arbaugh’s ability to play online computer games, browse the internet, livestream and use other applications “all by controlling a cursor with his mind.”

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[–] DeprecatedCompatV2@programming.dev 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

How do people who have gained hearing feel about it? It seems like hearing would be important for a number of things besides communication, but maybe modern life doesn't require much?

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There’s a variety of opinions. Born deaf often don’t like it. The later deafened you are the more you tend to want hearing back.

It’s not even about the communication per se, it’s also about the physical act of hearing which can be uncomfortable

[–] DeprecatedCompatV2@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's interesting. So if your brain isn't developed to cope with hearing, it's overwhelming similar to someone with autism?

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

Yeah, you can build it up, but it’s unpleasant and slow and idk if it can get all the way.

Basically (from what I remember/understand) your body loves “use it or lose it” on anything resource intensive, and nothing uses resources like brain. So if you aren’t getting sound you let other stuff butt in on that area and you never build up auditory processing. Add in the fact that CIs don’t work the same as biological cochleas (seriously there’s videos with sound replicating various CIs) and you basically have to relearn how to hear.

Another connection is actually autistic people with issues with verbal communication often don’t have those issues with sign language. It’s processed differently but not in a way that makes it super hard to learn, it’s honestly easier to pick up than most languages.