The first patient to have a computer chip surgically implanted in his brain by Elon Musk's company Neuralink says the technology has changed his life.
In a new video, the quadriplegic man demonstrated how the implant has enabled him to play online chess, a game he has sorely missed since becoming paralyzed, Knewz.com has learned.
"I love playing chess, and so this is one of the things that y'all have enabled me to do, something that I wasn't able to really do much the last few years, especially not like this," Noland Arbaugh, 29, told a Neuralink engineer in a video the company posted to X on Wednesday, March 20.
Arbaugh explained that about eight years ago, he dislocated two vertebrae in his spine in a "freak diving accident," leaving him without sensation or the ability to move below his shoulders.
He said while he became severely disabled, his cognitive abilities were not impaired. So while his desire to play chess remained strong, his ability to do so became seriously limited. He had to use a pad that didn't allow him to play online, and needed someone nearby to help him at all times.
"I have to worry about a lot of things like getting pressure sores and things like that," Arbaugh said.
He volunteered to take part in the first human trials of Neuralink's "brain-computer interface," or BCI, technology and the coin-sized chip was successfully implanted by a surgical robot in January, as Knewz.com reported.
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"Now, it's all being done with my brain," Arbaugh said, as he demonstrated his ability to move the cursor around the screen of his laptop in Tuesday's video. "That's all me. It's pretty cool, huh?"
As Neuralink's website explains, the operation involves a robot drilling a hole into the skull and placing the "ultra-fine and flexible threads" of the "N1 implant" into a region of the brain that controls movement intention.
"Once in place, the N1 Implant is cosmetically invisible and is intended to record and transmit brain signals wirelessly to an app that decodes movement intention," the website states. "The initial goal of our BCI is to grant people the ability to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone."
"The surgery was super easy," Arbaugh said, adding that he was released from the hospital a day after the implant operation.
He said the ability to use the chip came after a period of trial and error, which began with him trying to move his hands to trigger the Bluetooth technology to respond.
"From there, I think it just became intuitive for me to start imagining the cursor moving," Arbaugh said. He said eventually he was able to "stare somewhere in the screen, and [the cursor] would move where I wanted it to, which was such a wild experience."
He compared the experience to being "telekinetic."
"I just can't even describe how cool it is to be able to do this," he said.
The first time he was able to control the implant on his own, Arbaugh said he stayed up all night playing the video game Civilization VI.
"It was awesome," he said. "I had basically given up on playing that game."
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The biggest challenge now, he says, is waiting for the implant to charge after eight hours of use.
He acknowledged, however, that the technology is not perfect and he has run into some issues.
"I don't want people to think this is the end of the journey, there is still a lot of work to be done," Arbaugh said. "But it has already changed my life."
He went on to encourage interested candidates to take part in the company's clinical trials.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," he said.
Neuralink received approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration to conduct the implant operations in June of last year and subsequently announced the project was looking for volunteers with paralysis, especially those who had suffered a spinal injury. Test subjects must be disabled, live in the U.S. and be at least 18 years old.
According to its website, the company aims to "restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs today and unlock human potential tomorrow."
“I’d say it’s like a Fitbit in your skull,” Musk said during an online conference in 2021. “This obviously would be a massive enabler, make life way easier for them.”
But issues have arisen during animal tests, as Knewz.com reported last month that the FDA found issues with record keeping and quality controls during a federal inspection.