Neuralink brain-chip implant encounters issues in first human patient

Neuralink's brain-computer interface device has encountered issues since it was implanted in its first human subject, according to the company owned by Elon Musk.

Some of the device's electrode-studded threads started retracting from the brain tissue of quadriplegic Noland Arbaugh about a month after it was surgically implanted in late January, causing it to transmit less data, Neuralink wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. 

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the malfunction that caused a reduction in bits-per-second, a measure of the speed and accuracy of the patient's ability to control a computer cursor by thinking.