Neuralink Releases Videos of Monkey Playing Pong With Its Brain

Rei writes: Having moved from pigs to rhesus macaques in pursuit of the aim of hopefully starting human trials by the end of the year, Neuralink has continued their recruitment drive with a pair of movies displaying their newest progress. Within the first video, they present how they prepare the macaque to regulate a joystick with its thoughts, and the way after associating the neural indicators with intent, they will disconnect the joystick and the macaque continues to have the ability to function the coaching interface solely by Neuralink. They then change it over to controlling a cursor in Pong (picture-in-picture displaying synapses right here). Even with the sport set to excessive velocity and with the distraction of his banana-milkshake reward, the macaque places out a formidable gaming efficiency.

Musk expects the primary business product to allow a paralyzed particular person to work together with a smartphone sooner than a wholesome particular person utilizing their thumbs. [“Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again,” adds Musk. “The device is implanted flush with skull & charges wirelessly, so you look & feel totally normal.”]