Elon Musk: The first patient to have a Neuralink chip implanted in his brain has realized that he can control the mouse by mind

On February 21, Elon Musk, the founder of Neuralink, announced that the world's first human patient to receive Neuralink brain-computer interface implantation has fully recovered and can control the computer mouse indicator with his mind, and the next step will be to detect mouse buttons.

Musk's social media Spaces on social media X said that "the patient appears to have fully recovered and there are no adverse effects, and the patient can move the mouse around the screen just by thinking".

On January 30 of this year, Neuralink announced that it had completed its first human brain implant microarray surgery and that the patient was recovering well after surgery.

Neuralink's trial, called PRIME (Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface), is an investigational medical device trial of a fully implantable wireless brain-computer interface (BCI). The purpose of the trial was to evaluate the safety of Neuralink's implant (N1) and surgical robot (R1) and to evaluate the preliminary function of the brain-computer interface in helping paralyzed patients control external devices with their minds. The follow-up PRIME trial will run for six years, but there is little information to be made public, indicating a lack of transparency.

Details about the world's first human patient to receive Neuralink BCI implantation are still scarce, and currently eligible for the PRIME study of Neuralink, which requires that patients with quadriplegia due to spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis have not improved for at least one year.

The study uses robots to surgically implant brain-computer interfaces into patients' brains to control areas of movement intention, while the initial goal is to enable people to control computer mouse indicators or keyboards with their own minds, Neuralink said.

Neuralink designs a coin-sized chip and a surgical robot that implants the chip on the surface of the cerebral cortex, and the fully automated robot performs the processes of opening the scalp, removing part of the skull, implanting the chip and suturing the incision, and can automatically avoid blood vessels.

Musk has high hopes for Neuralink, which was valued at about $5 billion last year but has repeatedly faced calls for a review of its security protocols, as it will facilitate the rapid implantation of chip devices to treat diseases such as obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia.

Editor: Xinzhixun-Lin Zi