Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

Friends with Parkinson's with neural implants anecdotally report great results, but of course with rather coarse tech. There seems to be lots of future potential.

https://www.parkinson.org/living-with-parkinsons/treatment/s...

My brother has had YOPD since his late 20s. He got DBS done about 3 years ago, and it was life changing. Not only in the symptom reduction (tremors and rigidity significantly reduced -- he walked straight for the first time in years, could button his shirts again, etc), but also in lifestyle improvements around the amount and frequency of medication, the ability to sleep properly (several side effects of both PD and the meds affect sleep), the ability for his body to actually relax.

DBS, like you said, is rather course tech and actually quite old technology. Doctors still don't entirely know why it works, so the adjustment is often experimental. In fact prior to specialized MRI machines that they use during surgery now, the patients would remain awake during the placement (brain surgery) of the electrodes so that the surgeons would know when the placement was "correct" based on real-time assessment of their symptoms. Now they do it under MRI, but the point being it's far from an exact science.

Can't wait to see what the future holds as they improve on it. Hard to imagine a world where his symptoms are fully managed (PD is progressive degeneration, so his symptoms, even with DBS are gradually worsening with time), but it was also hard to imagine how DBS could overnight change his life in the ways it did.

My daughter has DBS for severe Tourette's. Her quality of life before the implant was horrible -- frequent 110 dB+ screams and self-injury. The implant has reduced her tic frequency and intensity by easily 95%. It's not only given her her life back but also the lives of her family members.

The potential of brain interface technology is truly incredible -- both for good and ill.