About a month before that town hall, Arbaugh had undergone surgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, about 2.5 hours from his home in Yuma, to get an experimental chip embedded into his brain which Neuralink had been working on and testing on animals<\/a> for the past nine years. Arbaugh was anesthetized and, in a surgery that lasted just under two hours, a Neuralink-made robotic surgery device implanted the chip and connected tiny threads with more than 1,000 electrodes to the neurons in his brain. Now the device can measure electrical activity, process signals, then translate those signals into commands to a digital device. In layman\u2019s speak, the BCI , or brain-computer interface, allows Arbaugh to control a computer with his mind. As a result, Arbaugh can do things like play Mario Kart,<\/a> control his television, and turn his Dyson air purifier on and off without physically moving his fingers or any other part of his body.<\/p>\n The first day that Arbaugh used his device, he beat the 2017 world record for speed and precision in BCI cursor control. \u201cIt was very, very easy to learn how to use,\u201d he tells me in an interview.<\/p>\n When Arbaugh became Participant 1\u2014or \u201cP1\u201d as he is often referred to by Neuralink employees and subsequent study participants\u2014he joined a list of about 80 people<\/a> to ever receive such a device. Brain chip interfaces have been a focus of neurological study for more than 50 years, and there\u2019s a dozen companies in the U.S. and China that have been conducting limited human trials since 1998.<\/p>\n But becoming the first patient<\/a> to get a Neuralink implant, in particular, is its own right of passage. For one, Neuralink\u2019s device has threads with more than 1,000 electrodes, giving the device a much higher connectivity rate than most of the BCIs currently being studied in humans in the market. But Neuralink also places its electrodes in the motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement\u2014a more invasive approach than competitors like Synchron or Precision Neuroscience, which also have ongoing studies of multiple patients. Neuralink\u2019s device is also wireless, versus competitors like Blackrock Neurotech that require a wired connection from the implant through the skull to an external receiver for signal capture and decoding (BlackRock Neurotech sells a wireless processor that has been used for research). That means Neuralink participants can go cordless\u2014but the device is battery powered because of it and does need to be charged: around every five hours or so, Arbaugh says. Neuralink heat treats the charger, a coil, into some of Arbaugh\u2019s hats, so that he can recharge it while wearing a hat. In the beginning, Arbaugh couldn\u2019t use the device while it charged, though that\u2019s since been updated.<\/p>\n Of course, there is also the fact that Neuralink is Elon Musk\u2019s brain chip company, which draws an entirely different level of scrutiny and attention to any study participant. Since Arbaugh revealed himself as \u201cP1,\u201d he has become a public figure, frequently invited on podcasts and having journalists show up at his home. His X<\/a> account has been hacked, and he told me that a SWAT team showed up with AR15s after someone gave a false tip to the local sheriff\u2019s office that Arbaugh was in danger.<\/p>\n When I first reached out to Arbaugh in early June to see how the BCI had changed his day-to-day 1.5 years in, it took a couple months for us to finally pin down a time. When we finally did hop on the phone, he laughed. \u201cI\u2019m just so busy all the time,\u201d he says. \u201cThat is so different than what life was like before\u2026 I feel like I\u2019m playing catch-up for eight years of not doing anything\u2014kind of lying around, staring at walls.\u201d<\/p>\n Since Arbaugh became the first Neuralink patient in January 2024, there have been eight more individuals, including one woman, to enroll in the company\u2019s ongoing clinical trials<\/a>, which are now open in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, and the United Arab Emirates. So far, all of the surgeries have taken place at hospitals in the U.S., with two of the participants receiving the implant on the same day at the end of July. All of the study participants suffer from either paralysis or ALS, a nervous system disease that causes loss of muscle control. \u201cOur goal is to really build a whole brain interface,\u201d Neuralink cofounder and president DJ Seo, said during Neuralink\u2019s summer update meeting<\/a>.<\/p>\n For Arbaugh, the Neuralink device has been entirely transformative, he says. He uses it about 10 hours a day to control his computer so he can study, read, and game\u2014and to handle things like scheduling an interview with me. Arbaugh enrolled in classes at his community college in Arizona, where he has started taking prerequisites he needs for a degree in neuroscience, and, as he tells Fortune, he\u2019s working on starting his own business\u2014paid professional speaking engagements and live talks.<\/p>\n As he talks about all of it with me, his excitement\u2014and a newfound sense of purpose\u2014is palpable. Before his surgery, \u201cI would stay up all night and sleep all day, and I didn\u2019t really [want to] bother anyone or ruin any plans or get in the way of anything,\u201d he says. \u201cI just had no purpose\u2026 I was just kind of going through the motions, waiting for something to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Arbaugh never lost the ability to think or speak due to his accident. But in the last year and a half, he has regained more of the autonomy he lost with his disability, and is able to do more things for himself. \u201cI feel like I have potential again. I guess I always have had potential, but now I\u2019m finding a way to fulfill that potential in meaningful ways. It\u2019s a lot different.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Never doubted for a second\u2019<\/p>\n When you talk to Arbaugh, he makes all of it seem rather simple. He had never heard of a \u201cBCI,\u201d or Neuralink for that matter\u2014until his friend from military school, an Elon Musk buff, learned of the first Neuralink clinical trial while researching SpaceX<\/a> at the end of 2023, Arbaugh recalls. The friend, Greg Bain, reached out to Arbaugh, who signed up to join the very same day (though Bain spelled his name wrong on the application).<\/p>\n Arbaugh spoke to Neuralink founder Elon Musk before and after his surgery.<\/p>\n \u201cI never doubted for a second that it would work,\u201d Arbaugh, who personally didn\u2019t have strong opinions of Elon Musk one way or another, says.<\/p>\n Arbaugh says he received an email from the Barrow Neurological Institute the day after he applied, and started going through the process. There was a screening call and an interview, and then about a month later, he was going into the nearby hospital for a full day of scans and testing. About three months after he applied, Arbaugh found out that he was going to be the first participant, and his surgery was scheduled a few weeks later. While Arbaugh is not paid, Neuralink covers the cost of the surgery and the implant, and the company reimburses him for travel to and from his check-ups or for expenses directly related to the study. (Arbaugh says that, with FDA approval, Neuralink did pay him for two talks he gave at Neuralink, including the February 2024 talk where he revealed his identity for the first time)<\/p>\n Despite the risks of being the first participant of an experimental clinical trial, Arbaugh says it was an easy decision for him. \u201cI decided that, even if it didn\u2019t work\u2014even if something went terribly wrong\u2014I knew that it would help someone down the road,\u201d Arbaugh says. \u201cAnd I knew that good or bad, they would learn something and push this technology forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Technically I am a cyborg because I have been enhanced by a \u2018machine\u2019, but I still see myself as a regular guy<\/p>\n Noland Arbaugh, Neuralink\u2019s first study participant<\/p>\n As you may imagine, it was a little harder for his parents. Arbaugh says he remembers sending his mother the consent forms he had to sign for her to read over, which contained a laundry list of potential risks associated with the surgery\u2014and every imaginable thing that could go wrong with the experimental device. He said she read one or two items and then put them away, unable to read any further. But ultimately, both his parents supported his decision, he says, and never showed that the decision was hard on them. \u201cI hadn\u2019t really been excited about many things before that point, so they were just happy to help in any way they could,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Arbaugh was also extremely decisive in his choice to go public with his identity. He says he wanted to show people that he believed this device was safe, and what could be possible for those who used it.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to share it with people, because I thought it was huge, and I still do,\u201d Arbaugh says. \u201cI think it\u2019s one of the biggest leaps in technology that we\u2019ve had in a really long time, and I think that it\u2019s going to keep growing.\u201d<\/p>\n Arbaugh insists that Neuralink has never tried to dictate what he can or can\u2019t say publicly, and he says he has never been asked to sign any kind of non-disclosure agreement. It\u2019s been the opposite, he says: Neuralink staffers have encouraged him to disclose whatever he\u2019d like to. But he has voluntarily chosen not to talk about some things on occasion. For example, shortly after his surgery, some of the threads retracted, causing him to lose much of the control he had over the device. The incident was later published in the Wall Street Journal, and Neuralink published a blog post about it. It was a big deal, Arbaugh says, but he decided to wait for the team to figure out what had happened and how to repair it, which they did.<\/p>\n Revealing something like that at the time would have been \u201cextremely rash of me, and it would have absolutely made people lose faith in the product,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s not what I want. I love this thing. I love what Neuralink is doing. I love all of it, and I\u2019m really proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Next up at Neuralink<\/p>\n In the summer update meeting Neuralink published publicly, Seo laid out what the company is focused on next. Neuralink is starting a trial in the United Arab Emirates, called \u201cBlindsight,\u201d that would help restore sight to the blind. Neuralink is already developing robotic arms for participants, and, during the presentation, Musk said that the company wants to give them sensory control to where they could essentially \u201cinhabit an Optimus robot\u201d and control it with their minds, or attach an Optimus arm or leg to a person<\/a> to give them full control again of that part of their body.<\/p>\n \u201cThe future is going to be weird, but pretty cool,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Optimus robots being developed by Tesla could eventually be used to help Neuralink patients<\/p>\n As of right now, Neuralink is still adding patients to its various trials. At the end of July, Neuralink announced it had received approval to introduce a trial in Great Britain via University College London Hospitals and Newcastle Hospitals.<\/p>\n Neuralink still has plenty of critics for its more-invasive BCI approach and\u2014true to form for all of Elon Musk\u2019s companies\u2014the high employee expectations and long work hours have led to high turnover<\/a> as a result. Neuralink has also been accused of poor treatment of the monkeys<\/a> it\u2019s used to test its Link devices. (Regarding treatment of its animals, Neuralink says it works with animals in \u201cthe most humane and ethical way possible.\u201d Several of the Neuralink study participants that I spoke also contested the claim of animal mistreatment).<\/p>\n While some of Musk\u2019s other companies, including SpaceX<\/a> and the Boring Company<\/a>, have been accused of being lax when it comes to safety precautions, Musk is adamant that Neuralink is moving slowly and carefully as Neuralink tests its brain chips.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re very cautious with the Neuralinks in humans,\u201d Musk said during the summer update. \u201cThat\u2019s the reason we\u2019re not moving faster than we are is because we are taking great care with each individual to make sure we never miss.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Arbaugh](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/46b1535cd183d8e28b5cf870c820b1c9.jpeg\"\/)
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