Dr Paul Nuyujukian Desconstructs the Neuralink Monkey MindPong Video

Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions

Professor Paul is an assistant professor of Bioengineering, Neurosurgery and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He received a B.S. degree in cybernetics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2006. He received an M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in bioengineering and M.D degree from Stanford University in 2011, 2012, and 2014, respectively. His postdoctoral work was with Jaimie Henderson and Krishna Shenoy in the Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory. In today’s episode, we feature Professor Paul's video where the discusses the recently released video by Neuralink of a monkey test subject playing pong wirelessly and its significance for the fields of neuro-engineering and systems neuroscience.

Top three takeaways:

1. At 1024 channels, the Neuralink team have surpassed the previous breakthroughs in the number of transmitting channels
2. They (Neuralink) are sampling from the brain at a higher density than what is possible with more conventional chronically implanted electrodes like the Utah electrode array.
3. “For an expert in the field, this video represents a pretty big step for us”

[0:00] Ladan introduces the episode and the guest, Paul

[1:10] Paul introduces himself, his work and gives full disclosure about his relationship with the Neuralink team. He isn’t affiliated with the team in any way.

[3:40] (Audio from Neuralink video) Test subject is introduced and Paul describes the setting of the experiment

[6:15] Paul breakdown the enclosure and describes the setting of the experiment

[7:30] (Audio from Neuralink video) “The links record from more than 2000 electrodes”. Paul explains the implication of having 2000 electrode implants.

[10:15] Paul explains why it’s impressive to have 1024 channels presumably in Pager (the test subject). “The larger the sphere, the stronger the depth of modulation”

[12:40] (Audio from Neuralink video) “As he is playing this game, we are wirelessly streaming in real-time, the firing rates of thousands of neurons to a computer” Paul talks about the information on the panel and what it tells us about the experiment system.

[20:30] Paul talks about brain activity and speculates what decoding algorithm is running.

[22:30] Paul pauses the experiment video to bring attention to a click that happened too fast. “This couldn’t be running a dwell”

[26:00] (Video ends) Paul reflects over the potential impact of the video and the work Neuralink is doing. “For an expert in the field, this video represents a pretty big step for us”

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzNOuJIzk2E&ab_channel=BrainInterfacingLaboratory