Noland Arbaugh has a computer chip embedded in his skull and an electrode array in his . But Arbaugh, the first user of the brain-computer interface, or BCI, says he wouldn’t know the hardware was there if he didn’t remember going through with the surgery. "If I had lost my memory, and I woke up, and you told me there was something implanted in my brain, then I probably wouldn’t believe you," says the 30-year-old Arizona resident, who has been paralyzed below the middle of his neck since a 2016 swimming accident.
"I have no sensation of it—no way of telling it’s there unless someone goes and physically pushes on it." The Neuralink chip may be physically unobtrusive, but Arbaugh says it’s had a big impact on his life, allowing him to “reconnect with the world.” He underwent robotic surgery in January to receive the N1 Implant, also called “the Link,” in Neuralink’s first approved human trial.
BCIs have existed for decades. But because billionaire technologist owns Neuralink, the company has received outsize attention. It’s brought renewed public interest to a technology that could significantly improve the life of those living with quadriplegia, such as Arbaugh, as well as people with other disabilities or neurodegenerative diseases.
BCIs record electrical activity in the brain and translate those data into output actions, such as opening and closing a robotic hand or clicking a computer mouse. They vary in their design, level of invasiveness and the re.