Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface company Neuralink showcased a pig outfitted 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.

The design of the Neuralink device has changed since it was unveiled last year, rendering the device itself hard to see on Gertrude. It is now coin-shaped, and meant to sit flush with the skull, rather than having a small module resting near the ear. It’s “like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires,” Musk said. The device can pair with a smartphone app over Bluetooth Low Energy, he said.

Neuralink didn’t invent brain-machine interfaces — they’ve been around and implanted in people since 2006. The company’s main contribution to the technology is Neuralink’s thin, flexible wires, which are covered in electrodes to pick up brain activity.

‍