Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Elon Musk said Wednesday that his brain technology startup Neuralink hopes to implant its system in a second human patient in the “next week or so.” Executives also said the company is making changes to try to reduce hardware problems it encountered with its first participant.
Neuralink is building a brain-computer interface, or BCI, that aims to help paralyzed patients control technology, such as a phone or computer, with their minds. The company's first system, called Telepathy, centers on 64 “threads” that are inserted directly into the brain. The threads are thinner than a human hair and record neural signals through 1,024 electrodes, according to Neuralink's website.
BCIs have been studied in academia for decades, and several other companies such as Synchron, Paradromics and Precision Neuroscience are developing their own systems. No BCI companies have received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market their devices.
In a livestream with Neuralink executives on Wednesday, Musk said the company expects to implant its device in a “high” number of patients this year. It’s unclear when or where those procedures will take place.
A Neuralink spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
In January, Neuralink implanted its BCI in its first human patient, Noland Arbaugh, 29, at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, as part of an FDA-approved clinical study.
Neuralink said in a blog post in April that the surgery went “extremely well.” However, in the weeks following the procedure, Neuralink said some threads from the implant retracted from Arbaugh’s brain. The company reportedly considered removing the implant, but the issue has not posed a direct risk to Arbaugh’s safety, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Musk and Neuralink executives said during Wednesday's livestream that only about 15% of the channels in Arbaugh's implant are working. Still, he uses the BCI to watch videos, read and play chess and other video games, sometimes up to 70 hours a week.
For upcoming implants, the company said it is working to mitigate the retraction and measure it more accurately. Neuralink President DJ Seo said one of the ways they plan to do this is by sculpting the surface of the skull to minimize the space beneath the implant.
Neuralink also plans to insert some wires deeper into brain tissue and track how much movement occurs. Dr. Matthew MacDougall, head of neurosurgery at Neuralink, said the company will insert wires “at varying depths” now that it knows retraction is a possibility.
“The FDA will continue to monitor the safety of those enrolled in the Neuralink implant device study through regular required reporting,” an FDA spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.
