Neuralink Data Collection: What Is Gathered and How?
- Neuralink's implant records neuron spikes and related electrical activity from 1,024 electrodes in the motor cortex.
- The implant processes signals on its chip and sends them over Bluetooth to the participant's paired device for real-time decoding.
- Trial participants consent to how their data is used, and Neuralink's privacy policy says trial data is governed by each trial's protocol and consent forms.
What the implant records
The N1 implant is the source of the data. Early implants used 64 threads with 16 electrodes each, and later ones 128 thinner threads with 8 electrodes each, for 1,024 recording sites in both. The R1 surgical robot inserts the threads a few millimeters into the cortex, near motor neurons that plan movement.
Neuralink mainly records voltage changes outside neurons as they fire action potentials, or spikes, each a burst of about 1 millisecond. The electrodes pick these up at microvolt levels from many neurons at once. The implant also reports device information such as battery status, and the software logs usage, such as cursor speed.
Participants have streamed over 50,000 hours of neural data, according to Neuralink's October 2026 update. The data powers Telepathy, which turns intended movements into computer commands at about 10 bits per second for the median participant, with a record of 11.32 bits per second.
Processing on the implant
Custom chips in the implant amplify the signals, filter noise, and detect spikes, sampling each channel thousands of times per second. Because the raw stream is far too large to send over Bluetooth, the implant reduces it to the information the decoder needs before transmitting it to a paired smartphone or computer.
On that device, machine learning decoders map patterns to actions like cursor movement and adapt over time. That adaptation helped first patient Noland Arbaugh recover after many of his threads retracted in 2024.
Data in the clinical trials
In the PRIME Study, Neuralink collects data under FDA oversight, and in the UK under the MHRA. Participants, aged 22 to 75 with stable quadriplegia from spinal cord injury or ALS, sign informed consent forms that set out how their data is used. The CONVOY Study adds data from robotic arm control.
Patient Registry applicants provide basic information for screening, and neural data is only collected after implantation. Neuralink used participants' combined recordings to pretrain its 2026 decoders. Neuralink reported zero serious device-related adverse events as of January 2026.
Privacy and security
Colorado, California, Montana, and Connecticut have passed laws that protect neural data. Neuralink describes a patented pairing system meant to link the implant only to authorized devices, but it has not published its encryption details. Its privacy policy says the company does not sell personal information, and that trial data is governed by the trial protocol, informed consent, and, where applicable, HIPAA authorization forms.
How the data is used next
Neuralink's pretrained decoders set a brain-computer interface record of 11.32 bits per second in 2026. Its roadmap called for about 3,000 channels in 2026 and about 10,000 in 2027, and a 3,000-channel implant was disclosed in September 2026. More channels will mean more data per participant for speech decoding and, in the future, Blindsight.
This article was first published in October 2025 and corrected in October 2026; the latest patient count is on the patient table.
