https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/elon-musks-pig-brain-implant-is-still-a-long-way-from-solving-paralysis/

Last week Elon Musk’s brain tech start-up Neuralink unveiled the latest version of its neural implant technology. In characteristic Musk style, the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla announced the news during a widely hyped livestreamed event in which he showed off the implant’s functionality in several pigs.

The device is about the size of a large coin and can be fully embedded in the skull. Attached to it are 1,024 threadlike, flexible electrodes that extend down into the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain responsible for numerous functions, including motor control and sensory feedback. A customized computer chip in the device amplifies signals from the cortex and wirelessly relays them to a nearby computer. The electrodes are carefully inserted by a surgical robot and are capable of recording (and, theoretically, also generating) the tiny electrical signals, or “spikes,” produced by individual neurons. The idea is that these signals could one day be used to one day do things such as restore movement to people who are paralyzed or create a visual prosthesis for blindness.