First Neuralink Brain Chip Patient Says Hopes Implant Will Help Him Obtain Job

AUSTIN, July 26 (Sputnik), Lenka White – Noland Arbaugh, the first Nauralink patient to have the company’s N1 chip implanted in his brain, told Sputnik that he hopes the implant would help him obtain a job, among other tangible benefits

“I might be able to get a job that I wasn’t able to before because I’m able to do a lot that other people are able to do. I could go back to school and I think that’s a huge advantage,” Arbaugh told Sputnik in an interview.

Arbaugh made the comment in response to a question as to what he sees are the biggest advantages of the having the device implanted in his brain.

He is quadriplegic, having suffered a severe spinal cord injury while swimming in a lake in 2016.

Arbaugh said going back to school has been a long-standing desire despite not knowing how to submit written homework or perform mathematics problems.

Arbaugh has had the chip embedded in his skull and an electrode array in his brain for seven months. The chip includes 1,024 electrodes distributed among 64 threads.

In January, Arbaugh underwent an approximately 30-minutes-long operation with Neuralink to become the first person to have the chip implanted in his brain.

The device, which is about the size of a quarter but somewhat thicker, is connected to Arbaugh’s motor cortex part of the brain.

Neuralink has said it aims to develop a comprehensive computer-brain interface that incorporates a generalized input and output device to enable interactions with all aspects of the brain.