Elon Musk trots out pigs in demo of Neuralink brain implants

Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface company Neuralink showcased a pig with the company’s device at an event livestreamed on YouTube. One pig, Gertrude, had a device recording signals from an area of the brain linked to her snout. She’d had the implant for two months at the time of the demonstration.

As Gertrude’s snout touched things, an array of dots and a series of noises indicated when more neurons were firing. Pigs have large parts of their brains that are devoted to the snout, a sensitive sensing instrument.

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