Neuralink’s first patient says Elon Musk’s implant helped him “find purpose again”

The first recipient of the Neuralink implant has successfully turned the X comment section wholesome after posting how the implant gave him a newfound sense of purpose.

Noland Arbaugh was the first recipient of Elon Musk’s Neuralink implant after he suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed.

In a recent X post, Arbaugh confessed that “there was a time when (he) stayed up all night and slept all day because there wasn’t anything worth waking up for.”

Arbaugh said that he had no plans, no goals, and, overall, no purpose following his paralysis.

“Then I got my Neuralink implant and everything shifted.”

His outlook on life seemingly changed. He began to go to bed early, work up excited about the day to come, and most importantly, “found purpose again.”

Since receiving the Neuralink brain-computer interface (BCI), which allows Arbaugh to control a computer cursor with his brain alone, he has returned to school, started a business, begun traveling, and spoken on stages across the world.

“Neuralink didn’t just change what I can do. It changed what I believe I’m capable of,” Arbaugh writes.

“It gave me hope. It gave me purpose. And for the first time in a long time, I’m excited for what’s next.”

The comment section erupted with heart-warming comments from people who are genuinely inspired by Arbaugh’s message, something that doesn’t happen very often on a platform like X.

“Your story, your experience, is amazing and inspiring. And it’s just beginning. All the best to you…” said Andrew Hessel, co-founder of the Human Genome Project.

“Thank you for sharing your story. People underestimate how much of an improvement accessibility tech makes for society,” the DataRepublican replied.

“This is so incredibly inspiring. This is what I was hoping to hear from the people who got the implants. Congratulations!” a former engineer at Tesla and Neuralink said.

What is Neuralink?

Neuralink is a BCI company started by Tesla and X CEO, Elon Musk, that creates implants for those who suffer from paralysis and other issues with motor function.

How it works is that Neuralink places “electrodes near neurons in order to detect action potentials,” the website reads.

“Recordings from many neurons allow us to decode the information represented by those cells.”

In terms of movement, various neurons represent intended movements.

“There are neurons in the brain that carry information about everything we see, feel, touch, or think,” Neuralink said via its website.

When implanting a tiny, invisible chip into a person’s brain, the person is capable of controlling a computer using their brain, which has given people like Arbaugh more freedom.

Neuralink and its controversies

While the implant has been said to improve the lives of people with paralysis and other motor disabilities, Musk’s technology has come under scrutiny in previous years.

Cybernews previously reported that Argbaugh’s Neuralink implant malfunctioned while already implanted in his brain.

Neuralink disclosed that it encountered a problem with the implant, as a number of the implant’s threads that had been placed in Arbaugh’s brain came loose, the company said, and it reduced the amount of data the device could capture.

Neuralink has also been under intense scrutiny by several US federal agencies and animal safety advocates for its reported mishandling of animal experiments.