palmi: 0:00

Soundstrike. Welcome to our podcast When life Gives You Lemons. I'm Kevin. My co-host is Palmi. I have a rare disease called Spinocerebellar Ataxia which is a neuromuscular disease This is left me. With a speech impediment and noise-induced anxiety.

Kevin: 0:35

Living with these disabilities for over 20 years, we have developed helpful hints and life lessons that we would like to share with you that has made our life easier and possible in some cases. We consider ourselves disability advocates and intend to educate ourselves and you about other disabilities and issues, and also talk about things we find interesting and frequently encounter when we're out and about. Hey Kevin, welcome to When Life Gives You Lemons podcast.

palmi: 1:10

Hey Palmi, how are you today?

Kevin: 1:13

I'm doing good.

palmi: 1:47

Handout. Breast kicker handout, yeah. But uh I have another phone.

Kevin: 1:53

So what what interests you about this neurotechnology?

palmi: 1:58

What it is is uh the actual patients that have the implants nowadays, there's a grand total of two of them. And they started out the company that has started out looking for patients with uh spinal cord injuries and uh Alzheimer's. I'm not sure what those two conditions have become, and but that was what they were looking for when they got their first two patients. Now they're working on uh what they call Operation Blind Side. It's uh they take the uh advancements they've made in the chip and they believe they can work on curing uh blindness, kind of like they do with uh it's commonly accepted now with cochlear implants for the deaf. Yeah, I'm sure it will become an issue kind of like that whether you want it or stuff like that, you know. It's sometimes deaf people don't think deafness is a uh disability. Disability, so right.

Kevin: 3:26

They just don't it's their n it's their normal, right? Yeah, it's their normal. Yeah. So let's give a little background on this. Uh Neuralink is a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk in 2016. The company is developing brain computer interfacing, BCIs, designed to help treat neurological disorders and potential enhance human cognitive abilities. So I assume that's kind of why you were looking at it, huh? Because then you're you have a neural disability.

palmi: 3:57

Well, I'm sure I'm not a candidate that'll look for because I'm old.

Kevin: 4:02

Yeah.

palmi: 4:03

But uh a lot of things that you can if you find a way around neurologically speaking, there are a lot of other gives hope to everybody with a neurological condition because there's just so much not known about the brain and how to do things within the brain. Like uh, for example, in their research into uh uh blindness, they had to build an order for fly. It's fantasy as like getting a small camera and putting it in a spherical container and then plugging that into your object nerve because that's not your brain works, yeah, with your eyes, with sight. They actually had to like figure out the formats for the brain for that to work, and they say they can either do it now with for you know the possibility of doing it now, they thought they'd have to have an intact uh optical nerve, but that doesn't matter, they can use the artificial nerve tissue they're using elsewhere for that. And uh also want to point out that even though this is like a technologically driven thing, the board is like neurosurgeons, neuroscientists, and engineers, it's not like oh, we can build a metal robot here. It's like yeah, they have doctors saying why you can't explain to the engineers, you can't just make a uh spherical container that contains a uh video camera and call it a finite guy. Right. It's not the way the brain is gonna accept visual input.

Kevin: 6:19

So their core technology involves implanting a chip known as the LINK into the brain. This chip can decode and stimulate brain activity, which could be used to treat conditions like Alzheimer's and other neurological disorders, uh paraplegics, that type of thing. Neuralink recently implanted his device into a second human patient, marking a significant milestone in his development. The ultimate goal for Neuralink is to create a generalized brain interface that can restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs and unlock human potential. They're currently focusing on giving people with quadruple the ability to control their computers and medical devices with their thought. Yeah, we've seen that before, haven't we?

palmi: 7:12

Uh I've seen those videos, yeah, and they've gone beyond that.

Kevin: 7:16

So it's kind of like what was the scientist that was um had a disability he was on Stephen Hawking. Yeah, Stephen Hawking. Isn't that what he did?

palmi: 7:29

Yeah, I'm okay. This is how I understand how they've progressed to this point. The uh first thing they did was for some reason. I don't really agree or I assume people know what they're doing or disagree, but I'm not sure this was the greatest idea. But uh like what has been as Polly just read, the uh company has been drawn since 2016. Since then the neuroscientists and the engineers have gotten together to develop the technology, then they had to make it as small as possible and get FDA approval for human drawers. Obviously, that involved a lot of experimentation with human animal subjects before they got to human subjects. Right. And the first human subject was Elon Musk, and that was just a a proof of concept, and his role in the uh the research if you go is now to uh evaluate and recommend improvements to the brain computer interface, which is by far the hardest thing that the neuro new neurolike patients have to uh deal with. The ability to use your mind to control a mouse cursor. Once you get beyond that, everything goes geometrically.

Kevin: 9:26

Yeah, in January they conducted the first human implantation of the brain computer interface, um, which you said was Elon. And we were able to detect the participants' neural signals shortly after the implantation surgery. And since then, he has used our end of end-to-end BCI system for various applications like playing online chest and Sid Um Meyer's Civilization 5. 6. Um, there this marks a significant milestone towards the B BCI technology available to potential, potentially restore autonomy to millions of people with unmet medical needs. Uh, we've prepared this blog post to show a high-level snapshot of where we are as a company, our missions, and what guides us in the technology that we have built, the study we are currently conducting and the work we have yet to do.

palmi: 10:24

Yeah, one of the things I found fascinating was they were explaining how New Link can work better than like uh with the video games, better than a computer gamer works now because you're typically somebody operating a computer for a game, will have to think about what they want to do, and then they have to think about okay, I have to move my hand to move the mouse or type on the keyboard, whatever, and I have to like move a finger to either click on the mouse or type out the character, right? And they're comparing the two said basically in the time that it takes you to you as a a normal, non-augmented human to tell your brain, okay, I need to click the mouse or click the the key, whatever the case may be. It's gonna be uh uh from that point, that is how fast Nuralic is, because the guy just thinks and everything happens.

Kevin: 11:47

Just like a computer. Yeah. So what they've built is the current the current version of this device is called the N1 implant, an intercontinental I BCI implant designed to record negative neural activity through 1,024 electrodes distributed across 64 flexible leads and or threads, each of these of which is thinner than the human hair and capable of being placed independently in the brain. While the thin and flexible nature of the threads are designed to decrease the petition's risk and increase device utility, they also make the thread impractical to manipulate by hand. Therefore, they build a surgical robot, the R1 robot, designed to reliably and efficiently insert the threads into the cortex so that the electrodes can be placed near neurons of interest. The neural link application decodes and translates the neural data into action such as movement of a cursor or on a computer screen. The N1 implant is powered by an onboard battery that is inductively recharged by the N1 charger. The ability to wirelessly communicate and inductively change charge enables the N1 implant to be surgically implanted under the scalp so that it is cosmetically invisible and used without any physical contact connectors to the external devices. The high-level representation of how the N1 implant, N1 charger neuralink application, and the robot R1 robot interaction is a first in-person clinical trial. The prime study building the technologies described above have been so have been no small feat. We constructed in-house microfabrication capabilities to rapidly produce various interactions of thin film arrays that conduct our electrode threads. We created a custom ephemeral second laser miller mill to manufacture components with a micro level precision. We developed novel hardware and software testing systems such as our accelerator, such as our lifetime testing racks and stimulating surgery environment to stress test and validate the robustness of our technology. We perform many rehearsals of our surgery to refine our procedure and made them second nature. We build our own animal care facility to satisfy testing requirements for our medical devices while going above and beyond the highest standards for the care and use of laboratory animals. We continuously engage and collect feedback from people with lived experience with quadruplegic through our patient registry, our customer advisory board, and various patient ac uh accuracy groups to shape the design of our technologies. Well, that was not easy to read. So it sounds like it's can it's gonna happen, not soon though, I guess. Well uh to the the normal public.

palmi: 16:34

It's happening, is what's exciting. Um obviously it's not gonna directly impact me, but uh it's gonna impact everybody with their neurological conditions eventually. Right now, if you're looking at it, it's impossible to get that surgery unless you're you're part of the neural-like study.

Kevin: 17:03

Right.

palmi: 17:04

Because obviously they have the robot that's programmed to do the surgery, then they control the technology and the the testing and the upgrading and so forth.

Kevin: 17:18

So and pretty sure this is considered um research and experimental.

palmi: 17:24

So experimental right now.

Kevin: 17:27

So no insurance is gonna cover it.

palmi: 17:28

So no insurance is gonna cover it.

Kevin: 17:30

And it sounds like this is multi-million dollars worth of stuff.

palmi: 17:33

It's gonna be uh right now the costs are formed by the researchers and the company that builds the uh stuff.

Kevin: 17:43

Yeah. It said their first human implant of a paralyzed adult was uh happened at the Barrel Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, and the surgery went well, and the participant was able to go home the following day. The participant's recovery since the surgery has been very smooth.

palmi: 18:05

So that's patient one.

Kevin: 18:07

That's patient one, not Elon Musk, then he did it prior to that.

palmi: 18:12

He's patient zero.

Kevin: 18:14

Zero, okay. And you said there was actually two patients at this point, right?

palmi: 18:17

Yeah, patient one and patient two.

Kevin: 18:19

And everything's going good so far.

palmi: 18:22

Yeah, everything I've seen since they are. Yeah, they uh they do just about quarterly official updates on YouTube. They put out a video. Uh when they come across something noon, unexpected, like the uh the it look they had a bill what they're calling the cyborg eye. Uh, they figured out the researchers figured out the format of what has to be transmitted to the brain and how and such. And the engineers then had to build an eye, and they're calling it the cyborg eye, and they did that in animal testing, I'm sure.

Kevin: 19:15

Yeah. Exciting.

palmi: 19:18

Yeah, it is.

Kevin: 19:19

And a future, I mean, can you imagine? Um, if at some point someone came down with what you have in 20 years, it might be just to go in and get a simple implantation and bypass all those side effects and all the suffering that you went through.

palmi: 19:38

Yeah. Um, since we're in the South of Jump in 20 years, i.e., this science fiction aspect of what could be where the possibilities lie and all that. They said it would be very easy with that cyborg guy. To see beyond the range of human sight, such as different spectrums like ultraviolet radiation, infrared gamma radiation. Uh I would think they could even do it thermal, like they do with some of the thermal sighting in military applications. That's very uh on the edge of the science fiction. I can't they they actually compared it to uh that now this was one of the uh videos on this, what they're called the cyber guy, comparing it to Jordi LaForge's advisor in Star Trek. Oh yeah. You can see in all those spectrums, and you can see in more than one that the spinning. What the human eye sees at once. So kind of like he does.

Kevin: 20:59

So uh approximately 18,000 people suffer from spinal cord injuries every year in the United States, and it's estimated that 302,000 people live in the United States have experienced a traumatic spine injury, spine cord injury. Um what it that what happens is it disrupts the normal function of the entire nervous system when that happens. It affects the build person's ability to perform everyday tasks to remain hopeful that the and we remain hopeful that the BCI device would be able to digitally bridge, make a bridge between the brain and the spinal cord to to prepare to improve the quality of life of these people with severe spinal cord injuries.

palmi: 21:43

As far as uh patient one and patient zero go, or patient patients one and two go, uh they're going because it is a trial. The uh basically the chip is not fully implanted in the dairy. They have a little metallic now that sticks out, uh-huh. So they have a physical connection to any apparatus and the injuries. They didn't know for sure with the uh spinal cord injuries what tweaks they'd have to bait to the equipment to uh right so they could do it on the fly.

Kevin: 22:32

Versus having to go in and do another surgery to do.

palmi: 22:34

So what they did is they implanted the uh chip in the guy's head, left the uh metallic dub sticking out of his head, and cosmetically defit in a fuel, he were as a baseball cap.

Kevin: 22:52

Which you do that every day, so that you would be willing and ready to do this. Speaking of that, uh they're in the early stages of what they're calling the prime study and plan to provide additional updates as we they continue to work with their first participants as well as other participants in the future. Overall, they plan to launch new studies in different geographic and continually improve their technologies based on learning from these clinical styles that trials that they're doing now. But what I'm getting to a point where they do not uh guarantee any benefits by participating in the prime study. But you if you are living with quadruplegic from a spinal cord injury or and or with a laterals ALS, you may qualify for the prime study, and we'll go ahead and put the link there in our show notes if that if one of our readers is interested in getting into that study.

palmi: 23:49

If somebody's interested in this stuff beyond just hearing the exciting news about what's going on, right? Uh you definitely need to uh contact them and find out if you fit into their study groups.

Kevin: 24:07

Yeah, Kevin's all the time searching for study groups for um for um his ataxia, specific ataxia. So, and we're always open to that, aren't you? Sure. Yeah.

palmi: 24:20

A lot of the uh research can be done remotely. Right. You know, they're not talking about like uh hearing that taxia loss when it was, you know, how is your taxi uh progressing?

Kevin: 24:39

Right. They need to know how to how it progress in order to be able to figure out how to fix it.

palmi: 24:44

They can do that more or less remotely and using common everyday household items, you know, how long does it take you to sort out 20 paper clips, right? Stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, just there's hope. Uh using metrics, yeah. And it's of course that.

Kevin: 25:07

And even if it's not something that you will that you get results from yourself, you know in your head, in your heart, in your head that you're helping someone else in in the future.

palmi: 25:18

Well, sure. Uh a lot of these ataxias of my disease alone, there are like over 30 different variants.

Kevin: 25:27

So And a lot of them are uh genetically linked.

palmi: 25:31

So, you know, we're talking of them are genetically linked.

Kevin: 25:34

Right. So you're talking you could maybe help your children or your children's children from suffering the way you have.

palmi: 25:41

Yeah, in my case they think I was exposed to something. So it's what they call. But in non-genetically linked.

Kevin: 25:51

But even in that case, if we can figure out what you were if we could figure out what you were exposed to, they could know that, you know, try, you know, know that that is something you can't be exposed to any longer.

palmi: 26:01

Or uh possibly even reverse it. Right. In some cases. If it caught it was caught soon enough, yeah. Yeah, if it was caught soon enough. Like uh in my case, what they found is uh early on they tested for what they call heavy metals like mercury, right? They can yeah have severe neurological effects effects and can also be reversed by getting rid of the mercury.

Kevin: 26:36

Right. But so this is good news, and we are happy to bring it to you as um uh disability advocates because we feel like this is our duty to try kind of when Kevin goes on a uh wormhole like this and gets some information, we'd love to share it with you.

palmi: 26:52

Yeah, also in the description will be the most recent uh photos YouTube video. They put out a link to their website if you want to contact them directly. As we mentioned before, this is a Elon Musk project. He founded this organization. He's always looking to try to help humanity out, and curiously, I believe this is one of his companies. He has not moved out of California because the website's the lesser addresses being in California. Okay, every other company he owned moved to uh Texas because they're advantageous tax laws.

Kevin: 27:49

Oh, okay.

palmi: 27:50

But I don't think he looks at the link as a company right now.

Kevin: 27:55

He's just gaining knowledge, right?

palmi: 28:00

He's not gaining money, right? Like he's not charging page or one and page and two for stuff they're doing. You're just participating in research.

Kevin: 28:14

All right. Well, this is another episode down in the books, Kevin. We want to mention again, please support us and be logged into our to be able to log into our um prize for the end of the season.

palmi: 28:28

Actually, we should mention that time is running out if you desire to do that.

Kevin: 28:35

Right, we only have one more episode.

palmi: 28:37

Our next episode is the last episode of the season.

Kevin: 28:41

And then what we thought we'd do, uh listeners, is that we bring back, uh, we do some encore um episodes while we have our little respite.

palmi: 28:52

Yeah, we typically start again in February or March. Right. I can't recall the exact month or whatever. We'll have to look at the calendar and we'll have that date for you next episode.

Kevin: 29:07

All right. I'm we're signing off.

palmi: 29:10

Well, it's been nice talking to you guys.

Kevin: 29:14

And we'll see you in the next episode. We are always looking to improve the podcast. So if you want to hear a specific topic, have a different opinion, want to add something to the conversation, drop us an email. Our contact information is listed on our website. It's www.whenlifegives you lemons.net. We have recently added a companion YouTube channel called Making the Lemonade. If you enjoy the podcast, continue your enjoyment by joining us on YouTube.