Neuralink has reportedly implanted a chip in a human brain
The controversial startup Neuralink has reportedly implanted a chip in a human brain for the first time, which, if true, marks a milestone in the field of neural technology.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk claims that his company Neuralink successfully implanted a chip in a human brain.
Musk stated that one of their wireless brain chips was inserted into a human brain.
The operation took place on Sunday, January 28, and the patient is reportedly recovering well, Musk added.
Musk’s announcement could signify a significant milestone in Neuralink’s efforts to transition a potentially life-transforming technology from the lab to the real world.
However, there are few details so far about the intervention that purportedly achieved the implantation of a chip in a human brain. “Initial results show promising neural spike detection,” said the world’s richest man on X, his owned social media platform.
Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, has declared its readiness to commence trials in humans.
The first product from Neuralink would be called Telepathy, Musk stated in another post, adding that the initial users would be individuals who have lost the use of their limbs.
“Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a typist or auctioneer. That’s the goal,” he wrote. Neuralink has been working on using implants to connect the human brain to a computer for half a decade.
The company faced public scrutiny after a monkey died in 2022 during an attempt to make the animal play Pong, one of the earliest video games.
For implanting a chip in a human brain, Neuralink would need to explain the process, but there’s no explanation from those who allegedly performed the intervention.
–An Incredible Feat–
Last May, Neuralink received FDA authorization to conduct clinical trials in humans, and a few months later, the startup began recruiting patients with quadriplegia caused by either a cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Trial patients will have a chip surgically placed in the part of the brain that controls movement intention.
The chip, installed by a robot, will record and send brain signals to an app, initially aiming to “give people the ability to control a computer cursor or keyboard using only their thoughts,” the company wrote when recruiting volunteers in September.
This six-year study involves using a robot to surgically insert 64 flexible threads, thinner than human hair, into a brain region controlling “movement intention,” according to Neuralink.
The company claims that these threads enable their experimental implant, powered by a wirelessly rechargeable battery, to wirelessly record and transmit brain signals to an app decoding how the person intends to move.
By implanting a chip in a human brain, according to Musk, it will allow people to “control the phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking.”
–Other Companies Seeking to implanted a chip in a human brain
Blackrock Neurotech, based in Utah, USA, implanted its first of many brain-computer interfaces in 2004.
Precision Neuroscience, founded by a co-founder of Neuralink, also aims to assist people with paralysis.
This implant resembles a very thin piece of tape placed on the brain’s surface and can be implanted via a “cranial microcut,” which the company claims is a much simpler procedure.
Lee acá: The story of Inca Cola: The soda that beat Coca Cola ¿Or did it?.
