Elon Musk’s Neuralink has implanted a second trial patient with its brain chip.
Aimed at allowing paralysed people to control devices through thoughts, the second chip was placed in a patient who had been injured in a diving accident.
According to Musk, the second human trial appeared to have been a success, with the chip designed to record brain activity through over 1,000 electrodes.
“I don’t want to jinx it but it seems to have gone extremely well with the second implant,” Musk claimed on a podcast.
“There’s a lot of signal, a lot of electrodes. It’s working very well.”
Noland Arbaugh, who was also left paralysed after a diving incident, was the first to undergo a human trial of Neuralink’s chip.
He is now able to play online video games such as Mario Kart and can move a mouse around a screen with just thoughts, according to Musk.
Neuralink had considered removing Arbaugh’s chip, however, after some of the 64 threads used to house electrodes in his chip became disconnected.
Musk reassured Arbaugh was in good health though, adding he could still use the remaining 15% of the chip.
This comes after Neuralink has previously faced criticism over animal trials, which in some cases resulted in research monkeys being euthanised following complications caused by the chips.