Here’s a video of Neuralink’s first human patient controlling a computer with his thoughts

Earlier this year, Elon Musk announced that the first human patient had received a Neuralink brain implant as part of the company’s first clinical trial. The company has now shared a brief public demonstration of the brain-computer interface (BCI) in action.

The company broadcasts briefly live demo on X with a 29-year-old man named Nolan Arbaugh, who said he was paralyzed from the neck down after a diving accident eight years ago. In the video, Arbaugh explains that after getting the implant — he said the surgery was “super easy” — he had to learn how to distinguish “imagined movement from attempted movement” in order to learn to control an on-screen cursor.

“A lot of what we started with was trying to move,” Arbaugh said. “I would try to move, say, my right hand to the left, my right hand forward, back. And from there I think it just became intuitive for me to start imagining how the cursor was moving.

In the clip, which also features a Neuralink engineer, Arbaugh demonstrates BCI by moving a cursor around a laptop screen and pausing a music player on the screen. He said the implant allowed him to play chess and Civilization VI. He noted that he previously used other assistive devices such as mouth sticks, but that the Neuralink implant allowed for longer gaming sessions as well as online play. He said he can get about eight hours of use before the implant needs recharging (it’s not clear how the charging works).

Arbaugh became the first human patient to receive the implant in January after Neuralink began recruiting patients last year. The company previously tested BCIs on animals, including chimpanzees, and some of its animal testing practices have been the subject of federal investigations.

In the video, Arbaugh indicated that his experience with the brain implant has been positive so far, despite some initial problems. “It’s not perfect, I would say we ran into some issues,” he said. “I don’t want people to think this is the end of the journey. There is a lot of work to do, but it has already changed my life.”