11.26.25 – Bryan Eagle
“Brain Power: Paralyzed Aggie First To Get Brain Chip Implant”
By Joe Southern
Excerpts from this article:
Nearly two years ago former Texas A&M student Noland Arbaugh became the first person to have a Neuralink chip implanted in his brain to allow him to control movements on a computer with just a thought.
A freak swimming accident left Arbaugh a quadriplegic, unable to feel or move anything below his shoulders.
He was swimming with some friends in a lake in the Pocono Mountains when they dived underwater.
Someone inadvertently bumped him, dislocating a couple of his vertebrae.
“I woke up face down in the water," he said. "I was conscious for maybe, I think it was probably close to 15 seconds or more, just staring down into the water and knew I couldn’t hold my breath forever.”
… I knew immediately that I was paralyzed.
I couldn’t stand up out of the water, so I was just hoping that if I held my breath long enough, someone would like come pick me up out of the water. And after I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I just decided, well, now is as good a time as ever. And I took a big drink and drowned at that point.”
He was revived and rushed to a hospital where he had emergency surgery.
That was in 2016, two months after he completed his fourth year at Texas A&M University.
He didn’t graduate, as he was planning on a fifth year.
In 2023, Arbaugh was contacted by Greg Bain, his roommate from their time in A&M's Corps of Cadets.
Bain was a biology major and worked in a spinal cord research lab at A&M.
“He called me up and was like, ‘Hey, you want to get a chip in your brain?’ I was like, ‘Well, I’ve got nothing better going on.’ So he gave me sort of a quick rundown of what Neuralink was and asked if I wanted to apply,” Arbaugh said.
“And I was like, sure, and we applied right there over the phone.”
Neuralink was co-founded by Elon Musk.
Arbaugh didn’t know much about the man [Musk] beyond his affiliations with Tesla and SpaceX.
After getting chosen for the study, Arbaugh came up to speed quickly, reading everything he could about the company and its founders.
“I heard back from Neuralink within a day, maybe two, and started doing interviews, and over the next month, did maybe a dozen interviews and screening calls and full-body workups, the whole nine [yards], bloodwork, urine analysis, CT, MRI, functional MRI, just everything under the sun they could think of, psych evaluations, all of it,” he said.
“And then it was just sort of a waiting game for a while, for a few months, and they called me up one day and said you’re getting surgery in two weeks.”
The surgery was performed on Jan. 28, 2024, at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, about two hours away from Arbaugh’s home in Yuma, Arizona.
WHAT THE SURGEONS DID
“The chip is mounted to my skull with 64 threads implanted in the left side of my brain, in my motor cortex, specifically the region that controls my right-hand movement,” Arbaugh said.
“And basically what happens is, I try to move my right hand, and a bunch of signals fire in my brain. The implant will pick up the signals, and over time, learn what I’m trying to do … so it’s all fed through machine learning and AI [artificial intelligence]."
ALL HE HAS TO DO IS THINK
The chip uses a Bluetooth connection to an app that Neuralink developed that allows Arbaugh to move a cursor on his computer.
“All of the signals are still working in my brain, so it’s not as if there’s anything wrong there from a spinal cord injury standpoint,” he said. “It’s just that the signals don’t get through.”
Arbaugh said, at first, he had to think about moving his hand to move the mouse on his computer. Eventually the AI learned what he was trying to do with each repetition of movement.
“All I need to do is think,” he said.
“I’m thinking that I want to move my cursor from the left side of the screen to the right, and it will work. I’m thinking that I want to hover over this part of my computer screen and output a left click, and it will output the left click. These things happen as you give it enough data, it understands your intention … the chip algorithm understands what you are attempting to do.”
Arbaugh said getting the implant was a game-changer for him…
At first Arbaugh, 31, began playing chess games on his computer.
Now he does whatever he wants online.
He can also manipulate anything on his computer with Bluetooth technology, such as the environmental controls in his home.
NETWORKING
Since Arbaugh had his surgery, more than a dozen other people have entered the study. He is in contact with several of them.
“There’s at least six, six or seven of them that I talked to,” he said.
“We have, like our own little sort of group chats or Slack channels and things where they communicate and just sort of post the cool things that they’re doing or questions that they have, just chat from time to time. I answer any of their calls or texts whenever I can.”
ARBAUGH SHARES HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH
Arbaugh said he could have remained anonymous but chose to go public so that his story will bring hope and encouragement to others.
That led to a side job as a public speaker.
That has given him the ability to share not only his passion for the company but also his Christian faith.
When he isn’t making public appearances, Arbaugh is working to improve the technology of the implant and is also taking college classes.
“I’m taking classes at my community college here in Yuma, Arizona, Western College," he said.
"I changed my major. Neuroscience major now, so seems sort of fitting. Since joining Neuralink, I just have been fascinated with the field, with the technology. I just have a lot of questions that I’d like to learn the answers to myself. So I am taking, I think, 22 hours this semester, few mini-mesters. So that sort of adds up.”
LOOKING AHEAD
As Thanksgiving approaches, Arbaugh said he is grateful for his new lease on life.
"My brain implant didn’t just help me get my life back; it gave me purpose again. It gave me hope," he said.
"As a quadriplegic, I went from spending most of my days staring at a wall to going back to school, launching a business, and speaking on some of the world’s biggest stages as a keynote speaker. For the first time in a long time, I’m genuinely excited about the future. I’m so grateful to Neuralink for this opportunity, and to God for the purpose behind it."
Arbaugh said he does not know what his future will bring. He said he wants to work with Neuralink as much as he can.
The company appears to want to keep working with him as well.
MAY BE GETTING A SECOND IMPLANT
Shortly after being interviewed for this story, Arbaugh learned that he might be getting a second implant.
“Noland might be the first to receive a Neuralink upgrade and/or dual Neuralink implant to further augment his abilities,” Elon Musk posted on X.
The second implant, this one below his injury, would theoretically allow him to regain movement.
“I can’t overstate how fired up I am about the Neuralink dual implant," Arbaugh posted on X.
“One in the brain, one below the injury, finally working together. The potential is unreal. Yeah … I’m amped.”
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
Arbaugh told The Eagle that immediately after his injury he didn’t see much of a future.
Now, he said the possibilities are endless.
“I don’t know 100% where it’s all going to go. … Whatever God has in store for me. I can have all the plans in the world, but God has something different in store for me, then I’m more than happy to oblige and sort of live every day the best I can, and hopefully something good will come out of it all,” he said.
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