A Neuralink patient is now able to move a mouse by just thinking about it, but is TikTok scrolling possible?

Progress has been made – but it remains to be seen if it’s towards a bright future or a bleak dystopia. Neuralink’s first human patient is now able to move a mouse through thinking about it, a Reuters report reads.

Last month, Neuralink implanted a chip in the brain of a human, after receiving approval for human trial recruitment in the Fall of 2023.

Back in 2022, the Neuralink project entered its human trial phase – prior to that, Neuralink carried out testing with primates, killing 15 of the 23 test monkeys.

Now, the patient zero with a brain chip appears to have fully recovered. This is great, but it’s remarkable that the patient is able to control a computer mouse using their thoughts, the startup’s founder Elon Musk said.

“Progress is good, and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with neural effects that we are aware of. Patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking”, Musk said in a Spaces event on social media platform X.

Musk said Neuralink was now trying to get as many mouse button clicks as possible from the patient.

How is it done?

“In many ways, it’s like a Fitbit in your skull, with tiny wires,” Musk said of Neuralink’s device during the 2021 livestream event. The technology uses up to 1,024, 5-micron diameter wires “stitched” into a patient’s gray matter to make connections with neighboring neurons, delivering high-resolution sampling of the brain’s electrical emissions, and translating between analog electrical impulses and digital computer code.

As the report reads, the study uses a robot to surgically put a brain-computer interface implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move. The initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts.

That’s great, can you do that to scroll through TikTok?

Musk has grand ambitions for Neuralink, saying it would facilitate speedy surgical insertions of its chip devices to treat conditions like obesity, autism, depression, and schizophrenia.