Elon Musk says Neuralink has implanted first brain chip in human | Elon Musk

Billionaire Elon Musk, founder of neurotechnology company Neuralink, said the first humans received implants from the brain chip startup and are recovering well.

This surgery is not surprising. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the company permission in September to conduct the first clinical trial of the implant in humans.

“Early results show promise in detecting neuronal spikes,” Musk said in a post to X on Monday, a day after the chip was implanted.

Spikes are activity by neurons, which the National Institutes of Health describes as cells that use electrical and chemical signals to send information around the brain and into the body. Musk did not provide further details.

In a follow-up tweet sent in between discussions about video games and banter with far-right influencers, the businessman said the first Neuralink product was called Telepathy.

“Just by thinking about it, you can control your phone, your computer, and almost any device through them,” he writes. “The first users will be people who have lost limbs. Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or an auctioneer. That’s the goal.”

Mr. Musk has a long history of making bold promises, but his track record of delivering on them is patchy. In 2016, he incorrectly predicted that Tesla would be able to drive itself from New York to Los Angeles within two years. That year, he said his own rocket company SpaceX would fly to Mars in 2018, but that hasn’t happened yet.

In 2017, Musk suggested that Neuralink’s first products would be on the market “within about four years.” But Tuesday’s news was a “significant milestone” toward that goal, said Anne VanHostenberg, professor of active implantable medical devices at King’s College London.

“For the brain chip implant community, we need to place this news in the context that while there are many companies working on exciting products, only a few have implanted devices in humans. “So Neuralink joins a fairly small group,” she added.

“I think Neuralink wants to give participants time to recover before they start training the system. I know Elon Musk is very good at promoting his company. One might expect an announcement to be made as soon as testing begins, but in my opinion true success should be measured by how stable the interface is over the long term. and how much benefit it will bring to the participants.”

The startup’s research, “Prime,” tests a wireless brain-computer interface to assess the safety of implants and surgical robots. According to the company’s website, researchers plan to evaluate the ability of the interface to allow people with quadriplegia to control devices with their thoughts. Neuralink and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for further details.

musk Reply to Cryptocurrency Influencer X quoted the company as saying it “helps restore vision,” adding that Blindsight is another product Neuralink is working on.

Reuters reported this month that Neuralink was fined for violating U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) regulations regarding the movement of hazardous materials.

When inspecting the company’s facilities in Texas and California in February 2023, State Department investigators found that the company had failed to register as a hazardous materials carrier, agency records show. There is.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they also found improper packaging of hazardous waste containing flammable liquid xylene, which can cause headaches, dizziness, confusion, loss of muscle coordination and death.

Last year, Neuralink received FDA approval for the first human test of its implants, a significant milestone for the startup. Reuters reported in June that the company was valued at $5 billion based on private equity deals.

Neuralink announced clinical trials for the implant in September. The company said that during the study, a robot it developed would surgically implant the implant’s “extra-fine” threads, which help transmit signals to participants’ brains.