Elon Musk: human has first brain chip implant – 01/29/2024 – Tech

The first person to receive a brain implant from Elon Musk’s company Neuralink is recovering well, according to the billionaire’s announcement on X (former Twitter) this Monday (29).

“Initial results show promising signs of neural activity,” wrote Musk, who created the chip startup in 2017. The first tests are carried out on patients with cerebral palsy.

Since 2019, the owner of Tesla and X stated that he planned to test Neuralink technology on humans.

The technology company, however, received permission from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration in the USA) to start recruiting for the first human test only on September 19th.

The study now underway focuses on people with paralysis caused by cervical spinal cord injury or ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).

The startup did not reveal how many participants will take part in the experiment, which will take around six years to complete.

The study uses a robot to surgically place a brain-machine interface (BCI) implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said.

The initial goal, according to the company, is to allow people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using only their thoughts.

Neuralink’s technology is inspired by studies on the brain-machine interface by Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, who managed to connect the brains of Rhesus monkeys to computers.

During the opening of the 2014 World Cup, in the capital of São Paulo, a wheelchair user managed to kick a ball at the Neo Química Arena, in Itaquera, with the help of equipment developed by Nicolelis.

It is not known what sample size the FDA allowed in the Neuralink studies. According to Reuters, Musk’s startup planned to start work with ten people.

Neuralink raised US$323 million (R$1.59 billion) in two investment rounds carried out in the second half of last year.