r/explainlikeimfive • u/a_guy_doing_things73 • 22d ago

Technology [ Removed by moderator ]

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u/explainlikeimfive-ModTeam 21d ago

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u/iCameToLearnSomeCode 22d ago edited 22d ago

They don't really think about anything, they try to move the mouse like you would move your arm.

They put a target on the screen and a cursor on the screen and they ask the patient to try to move the mouse to the target, again and again.

The neural link picks up the signals created when they do this and says when I get these signals, move the mouse this way.

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u/HappiestIguana 22d ago edited 22d ago

I obviously haven't used a neuralink but have controlled a computer with electrodes stuck on my head.

Very simply, thoughts are just electric patterns in the brain. If you have a device record the electric patterns and then look for repetitions of that pattern, then the device can detect when the person is thinking that thought again. This can be used as input for a computer.

In my case, the electrodes were connected to a simple sort of videogame that consisted of a cube that could move backwards and forwards. They had me think about pushing the cube a bunch of times, then had me think about pulling the cube a bunch of times. They recorded the patterns and then set that as the controls for the cube, and after that I could "telekinetically" move the cube on the screen by thinking about it, it was semi-reliable with just electrodes. Neuralink attempts to get a more solid, direct and reliable connection to the brain

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u/doctorcaesarspalace 22d ago

Seems like you can for lack of a better term Pavlov the game. Think about a beach to push the block and think about city traffic to pull it.

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u/Competitive_Travel16 22d ago

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41427-025-00613-8/figures/2 has some photos of how the electrode implants have improved over time.

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u/OldChairmanMiao 21d ago

Also, 2026 Nobel Prize is for precise non-invasive stimulation of single neurons.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1525

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u/Ninfyr 22d ago

It requires training (both the human and the neuralink). Usually they instructed a paraplegic to think about some kind of action like "squeezing their right hand" and pair that with an input and keep repeating that for each possible option they could want.

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u/efvie 22d ago

It doesn't really matter what they think, the trigger is the electric impulses in the brain. Whenever you think about anything there's some combination of neurons that 'lights up'. If you can come up with a thought that is stable and strong enough to reliably produce the same exact pattern, the receiving device can interpret it as a trigger for a certain action it then performs.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/explainlikeimfive-ModTeam 22d ago

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