Elon Musk says a third patient got a Neuralink brain implant. The work is part of a booming field

Elon Musk said a third person has received an implant from his brain-computer interface company Neuralink, one of many groups working to connect the nervous system to machines.

Elon Musk said a third person has received an implant from his brain-computer interface company Neuralink, one of many groups working to connect the nervous system to machines.

“We've got ... three humans with Neuralinks and all are working well,” he said during a wide-ranging interview at a Las Vegas event streamed on his social media platform X.

Since the first brain implant about a year ago, Musk said the company has upgraded the devices with more electrodes, higher bandwidth and longer battery life. Musk also said Neuralink hopes to implant the experimental devices in 20 to 30 more people this year.

Musk didn't provide any details about the latest patient, but there are updates on the previous ones.

The second recipient — who has a spinal cord injury and got the implant last summer — was playing video games with the help of the device and learning how to use computer-aided design software to create 3-D objects. The first patient, also paralyzed after a spinal cord injury, described how it helped him play video games and chess.

But while such developments at Neuralink often attract notice, many other companies and research groups are working on similar projects. Two studies last year in the New England Journal of Medicine described how brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, helped people with ALS communicate better.

More than 45 trials involving brain-computer interfaces are underway, according to a U.S. database of studies. The efforts are aimed at helping treat brain disorders, overcoming brain injuries and other uses.