We’re one step closer to a reality where real-life cyborgs are commonplace. A new advancement in Neuralink’s brain implant tech has made it possible for a monkey to play a game using its mind.
Just like with the pig with which Neuralink implanted a chip to monitor its vital and neural activity, the monkey named Pager has a chip in its brain that acts as a brain-to-machine interface.
With the chip, as explained by a Neuralink scientist, the brain is monitored for patterns of neurons firing while Pager plays the game using a joystick controller.
The joystick, however, is not connected to the gaming device. Instead, the chip analyses the patterns to decode the monkey’s neural activity and indicate whether the monkey is thinking of moving his hand up or down.
Human trials for the brain implants may occur later this year. The ultimate goal is to decode neural activity without actual movement, but just imagining it.