Neuralink has shared a video of its brain-computer interface in action inside a human patient. The patient, a 29-year-old man named Nolan Arbaugh who is paralyzed from the neck down, is able to control a cursor on a screen using Neuralink's device. He is able to play games online for about eight hours before the implant needs to recharge. Arbaugh reports that his experience with the implant has so far been positive, despite some initial issues. The video is available in the article.

According to Elon Musk, Neuralink's 'Blindsight' product is already working on monkeys to restore vision. The resolution is pretty low, but researchers are looking for ways to increase the clarity of images. It is unclear whether the monkeys were born blind and how much of their optic nerves were still intact. The device could be made available to far more people if Neuralink was able to bypass both the eye and the optic nerve.

Neuralink encountered a problem with the implant in its first human patient that reduced the amount of data the device could capture from his brain. Some of the implant's threads have come out. Neuralink has not disclosed the reasons why the threads retracted unexpectedly. Despite the implant's degraded capabilities, the patient is still able to navigate around his computer screen and play games. Challenges with the first test in a human patient were expected and the Neuralink team remains optimistic that this problem can be solved.

The US Food and Drug Administration has given the green light for Neuralink to implant its brain chip in a second person. Most of the threads implanted in the first participant have come loose and are no longer reading the electrical signals needed to translate his thoughts into cursor movements. While software changes have helped him regain many of the device's capabilities, only around 15% of the threads inserted in his brain remain in place. Neuralink's proposed fix for the problem that occurred in the first test participant involves embedding some of the device's ultrathin wires deeper into the brain.

Neuralink is recruiting another three subjects for its brain implant study. It is seeking subjects aged 22 to 75 with severe quadriplegia due to spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for at least one year without improvement. Healthy people, people with morbid obesity, or people with an active device already implanted are disqualified from the study. Participants will be monitored for adverse events for 72 months following the implantation procedure.

Neuralink plans to implant its system into a second patient within the next few weeks. The company is aiming to implant its device in 'high single digits' of patients this year. While only around 15% of the channels in the first patient are still functional, the patient is still about to use the device to watch videos, read, and play chess or other video games, sometimes up to 70 hours per week. Neuralink will be making changes to address the hardware problems it encountered with its first participant, with a focus on mitigating retraction.

Elon Musk announced on a recent podcast that Neuralink has installed its second implant into a human patient. The implant is apparently working very well. Musk said last month that there could be over 1,000 humans with Neuralink implants by 2026. A link to the podcast, in which Musk discusses Neuralink and its brain implant technology at length, is available in the article - Musk shares the news near the beginning of the four hour conversation.

Neuralink's experimental 'Blindsight' device, which is designed to enable even those who have lost both eyes and their optic nerve to see, has received the US FDA's breakthrough device designation. The 'breakthrough' tag is given to certain medical devices that provide treatment for or diagnosis of life-threatening conditions. It is aimed at speeding up the development and review of devices. Neuralink is currently testing an implant designed to give paralyzed patients the ability to use digital devices by thinking - it is unknown when it expects Blindsight devices to move into human trials.