“This kind of technology kind of gives you a new piece of hope.”Seb had just completed his first term at medical school when an accident left him paralysed from the neck down. He’s one of seven people fitted with the chip in the UK trial, designed to assess the safety and reliability of the device. The Neuralink chip, which is linked to 1,024 electrodes implanted in his brain, was fitted in a five-hour operation at University College London Hospital (UCLH). The electrodes were inserted about 4mm into the surface of Seb’s brain, in the region that controls hand movements. “It’s mindblowing – you can see the level of control that he has,” said Mr Harith Akram, a neurosurgeon at UCLH and lead investigator of the UK trial.