Elon Musk's company: Neuralink uses brain chip on second patient

In January 2024, the first person in the world received a Neuralink brain chip. Now the chip has been implanted in a second person – also a patient with a spinal cord injury.

With this groundbreaking science fiction invention, Elon Musk's company wants to help people in the long term who suffer from Parkinson, dementia or depressions However, the chip is currently being tested on people who can no longer move their limbs.

Neuralink performs brain surgery on second patient

In a podcast over the weekend, the billionaire revealed that the participant has a similar spinal cord injury like the first patientwho is paralyzed by a diving accident.

“400 of the implant’s electrodes function in Brain of the second patient,” said Musk. According to Neuralink's website, the implant uses a total of 1,024 electrodes.

“It seems to be going very well with the second implant,” Musk told podcast host Lex Fridman. “There are a lot of signals, a lot of electrodes. It's working very well.”

Musk did not reveal when Neuralink operated on the second patient. The Tesla boss assumes that Neuralink will implant eight more patients this year as part of its clinical trials.

Neuralink’s nerve implant works without external hardware
Photo: Neuralink

Problems with the first patient

In January, the company implanted its brain chip into a human for the first time. But due to detached electrodes the precision and speed of mouse pointer operation decreased.

“We have made the algorithm for detecting brain activity more sensitive and improved the technology that translates it into cursor movements,” Neuralink explained. After software adjustments, the accuracy values are now even higher than before.

The first patient can now play video games, surf the Internet and move a mouse pointer.