The thought of connecting our brains with the computer,be able to communicate wirelessly without speaking a word,be able to fantasize and do things we have never thought before and many more,makes us feel powerful something we have imagined and portrayed in Sci-Fi movies.Well these all fantasies can be true now, thanks to Neuralink — The Latest tech innovation from Elon Musk from his firm neuralink which aims Developing tech around neural interfaces.
What is the Neuralink Technology?
The Neuralink N1 a 4mm-square chip, is implanted into the skull which 1024 channels or electrodes that interface with the brain. It is able to communicate wirelessly with Bluetooth low energy to the any of the devices or to the outside world thereby sending signals to and from the brain.
The current goal of this device is to help with neurological disorders, which are rooted in the inability of the brain to connect with nerves around the body. These include epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease, but also paraplegia and quadriplegia following injuries to spinal nerves. But is it limited to curing only diseases? Well certainly no. It can do certainly do many many other things and these will unravel with time as the chip upgrades.
The chip is a ingenious and remarkably innovative piece of work that brings many disciplines and domains of technology under on hood like Software Engineering,Embedded Engineering,Neuroscience,Electrical Engineering,Mechanical systems,etc.Lets see what this technology is capable of and how it works on a very broad level.
On what architecture the Neuralink link chip is based on?
The Neuralink is based on based on a custom architecture of chip design and not ARM or x86 simply because it has to work on a very different kind of constrained environment like the human body which can pose several implications. So the chip design in itself is quite different.
How does the chip communicate with the outside world?
The chip is based on spike detection algorithm. It is based on online spike detection mechanism where the chip detects any thresholds received from the 1024 channels and performs Band pass filter and sends the only characteristic shapes over BLE. The raw signal is way more complex and is simplified and is filtered by the Neuralink. Spikes are events happening is the neurons in the brain that represent an activity .These are electical impulses or a kind of digital signal like 0 or 1 that are sent by the neurons to other recipient neurons.
What is the installation process of the chip?
The chip is implanted on to the skull by making a small incision of the shape of a coin on the top of the skull. The fine 1024 threads are engraved into the brain without affecting veins or other blood vessels.The incision is covered using a plastic like material which is durable and looks like flesh.This is a robotic surgery process and is carries by one of neuralink’s automated systems to carry out the whole process.This is now has been tested on pigs.Later to market the device on humans it requires an FDA approval.
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