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A trip to a Pennsylvania lake turned tragic for a man who was left paralyzed after running into the water for a swim.
Noland Arbaugh, 29, recalls being hit in the side of the head by another person, leaving him unable to move his body from the shoulders down as he woke up face down in the lake.
The 2016 accident led to him becoming Neuralink’s patient zero this year, where he received a brain implant that allows him to control computers and other devices.
“I was a little worried it wouldn’t work because (that could happen) with the first of anything, but I wanted to be the first to try all of that,” he said in an interview on The Kim Komando Show.
“If someone was going to go through that, experience the negative aspects, I wanted to take it on as much as possible to help people who came after me.”
While Elon Musk’s company has allowed Arbaugh to communicate with the world, the technology is not without risks, as cybercriminals could hack the device and take over his computer.
Technology expert Kim Komando recently sat down with Noland Arbaugh on my national radio show to talk about the implant process and his hopes for what’s to come.
“It’s possible (the brain chip could be hacked),” Arbaugh said. “There’s not much that could be gained from it. It would be possible to read the workings of my neurons.”
He went on to explain that if someone were to hack into the brain implant they could take control of the computer.
“If I’m hooked up to (a computer) and you’re close enough, you could hack (the chip),” Arbaugh explained.
Connecting
First order of business: Why did Arbaugh decide to sign up for a Neuralink implant in the first place?
It all started with a tragic accident right after her senior year of college in 2016.
While working at Island Lake Camp in Starrucca, Pennsylvania, Arbaugh went swimming in a man-made lake.
While running towards the water, another person accidentally hit him on the side of the head.
He woke up face down in the water and knew immediately that something was very wrong.
“I tried to move and I knew I couldn’t,” Arbaugh said. “I was holding my breath and I thought, ‘What do I do now?'”
“And that’s how I’ve felt the whole time I’ve been through my accident. Just… How can I move forward? What can I do to make my life better?”
He suffered a severe spinal cord injury that caused quadriplegia, paralysis from the shoulders down.
That eventually led him to apply for the Neuralink program. A friend from college was working in the spinal cord field and following Elon Musk. After Googling Neuralink’s human trials, he was quick to tell Arbaugh about it.
“He texted me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to get a chip in your brain?’ And I jokingly said, ‘Maybe so.'”
Arbaugh is pictured before the 2016 accident that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down.
However, Arbaugh was told that one of the risks was that the chip could be hacked, allowing cybercriminals to take control of his devices. Neuralink’s brain-computer interface (BCI) allows direct communication between the brain and external devices, such as a computer or smartphone.
Arbaugh had applied for three or four trials the previous year and hadn’t heard back from any of them. When he applied to join Neuralink, he was expecting the same.
“So I joked on my application. I told him I wanted an Ironman suit,” Arbaugh said.
To his surprise, he heard back within a day or two. He underwent brain scans and full body tests within a month and surgery a couple of months later.
The Neuralink Experience
Arbaugh’s surgery was fairly quick. He was initially told it would take between three and six hours.
Everything went perfectly and the doctors completed it in less than two hours.
The procedure is minimally invasive and the implant is placed using a specially designed robot.
Neuralink’s brain-computer interface (BCI) enables direct communication between the brain and external devices, such as a computer or smartphone.
Everything happens wirelessly, so in practice the chip allows Arbaugh to control devices with his thoughts.
It works through a small chip, known as ‘Link’, which is implanted in the brain.
The chip is connected to more than 1,024 electrodes, each thinner than a human hair.
In Arbaugh’s case, the electrodes are placed in his motor cortex, on the left side of the brain.
Wires and electrodes are placed near neurons. When they activate, they record Arbaugh’s intentions.
Let’s say you try to move your hand, neurons fire and signals are picked up by the electrodes.
The signals are then sent to an app that Neuralink created and loaded onto a computer.
Everything happens wirelessly, so in practice, the chip allows Arbaugh to control devices with his thoughts.
“It’s almost like calibrating a cursor on a computer screen. It tells you to move the cursor to the right, so you push it to the right,” he said.
“It tells you to move left, you push left. I do that with Neuralink and over time it learns what I want to do.”
Life is already better
Arbaugh has had the device for just over five months and things are getting better every day. One of the biggest advantages, he said, is how quickly he can send text messages.
The procedure is minimally invasive and the implant is placed by a specially designed robot.
With Siri, even a response took forever to get right. “Now I can send a text in a couple of seconds. It’s so easy,” Arbaugh explained.
Arbaugh has a virtual keyboard that he controls with his cursor and a dictation tool custom-made for him by Neuralink.
Nolan uses this same cursor technology to play chess and Mario Kart. Incredible.
What the future holds for us
At this time, Neuralink cannot help Arbaugh physically move his hands and legs, but he believes that will happen in his lifetime.
The goal, he said, is to implant one Neuralink in the brain and another below the level of the injury in the spinal cord.
“Then the two Neuralinks would communicate with each other and bypass that part of the spinal cord and you would be able to move again,” Arbaugh said.
Arbaugh took a huge risk and hopes it can help other people in situations like the one he experienced years ago.
“I imagine a world where someone has a spinal cord injury, goes to the hospital, has surgery and comes out walking a day or two later, with no muscle atrophy or negative side effects at all,” he explained.
“I think it’s totally doable. Even if I never walk again, it’s totally worth it to me.”
Neuralink has not disclosed how much it paid to develop, research and test the technology, but Musk has said the long-term goal is to reduce the final cost of the procedure to a few thousand dollars.
In Arbaugh’s case, the chip allows him to regain the movement he lost after injuring his spine.
In other cases, Neuralink’s BCI could help someone regain the ability to communicate or could help treat conditions like Parkinson’s and epilepsy.
Arbaugh knows that many people have ethical concerns about technologies like Neuralink.
Your goal? To help others.
“It’s changed my life a lot. It’s made me more independent. It’s helped me feel like I have a purpose and that I’m capable of achieving a lot more than I was able to achieve before,” Arbaugh said.