American billionaire Elon Musk surprised the global scientific community by announcing the success of his company, Neuralink, in the first operation to implant an electronic chip in human brains, and confirmed that the patient on whom the experiment was conducted was recovering well.
Musk said in a post on his X platform
Neuralink aims to implant chips in people's brains, to help
people who suffer from severe brain and brain injuries, or people with
disabilities, operate computers, cell phones, and technological devices using
their thoughts.
The company has previously conducted experiments with these
chips on monkeys and has already succeeded in interpreting signals emanating
from the brain and transmitting them to devices via Bluetooth.
Musk stated that the first ambition of implanting chips is
to restore sight and allow movement to the muscles of people who are unable to
do so.
Neuralink has previously developed chip connections to the
brain and said it may give disabled patients the ability to move and
communicate again.
Experts previously told Reuters that if Neuralink can prove
that its devices are safe for humans, it will take a few years or perhaps more
than a decade to obtain a license for commercial use.
The first product from Neuralink aims to change the way we
interact with technology. It lets users operate nearly any device, including
computers, phones, and other gadgets, just by thinking. This could open up a
world of possibilities, especially for those who have lost the use of their
limbs.
Musk said in his tweet that the new implant “enables you to
control your phone or computer and through them almost any device, just by
thinking. The first users will be those who have lost the ability to use their
limbs.”
Neuralink is a company founded by Elon Musk and a team of 7
scientists and engineers in 2016. These individuals are experts in different
fields such as neuroscience, biochemistry, and robotics.
The company's goal is to create an implantable brain device
that enables people to control computers and other devices just by thinking.
Initially, the company bought the name “Neuralink” from its
previous owners in January 2017. They then began developing a device that could
be implanted in the brain. This device is very small, about the size of five
coins.
By 2019, the company had received $158 million in funding and had about 90 employees. They were developing a tool that could introduce extremely fine threads into the brain. These threads can then pick up signals from the brain.
Initially, they thought they would begin human testing in
2020, but that was postponed to 2023. By May 2023, they received approval to
begin human testing in the United States.
However, the company faced some criticism because many of
the monkeys reportedly had to be euthanized. There have also been some problems
with the electrodes implanted in the brains of monkeys.
After receiving FDA approval for human clinical trials in
May of last year, Neuralink started accepting patients with quadriplegia
brought on by either amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or cervical spinal
cord injury.
In a September Neuralink post article about recruiting
trial participants, the company stated that the trial is a part of its
"PRIME Study," short for "Precise Robotically Implanted
Brain-Computer Interface," which aims to test the device's functionality
and investigate the safety of its implant and surgical robot.