Elon Musk might be on the verge of making one of the biggest breakthroughs yet in neuroscience.
What’s happening:
- Elon Musk’s neuroscience company Neuralink has successfully completed the first ever implant of a wireless computer chip into a human brain in their clinical trial
- The first ever clinical trial from Neuralink is focused on individuals who are quadriplegic or suffer from ALS, aiming to transform patients whose movement is significantly restricted and impaired
The big idea:
- Neuralink’s technology is aiming to allow individuals to control devices through their thoughts, which would be an enormous breakthrough for patients currently living with paralysis
- Neuralink’s small chip is surgically embedded into an individuals brain which then becomes capable of receiving information from neural threads
- The ultimate vision of Neuralink is to build the world’s first brain-computer interface that is capable of of restoring autonomy to individuals who have medical needs that are extremely difficult to treat or debilitating
Going deeper:
- While the first Neuralink chip has only just recently been implanted into a human brain, initial results are already showing promising neuron spike detection
- Neuralink received clearance from the FDA for their clinical trial less than a year ago and has been rapidly advancing towards implanting their brain chip into the first ever human patients, which is widely considered to be one of the most important breakthroughs for neuroscience technology if successful
The intrigue:
- The surgical process for implanting a chip inside of a patients brain is so complex that Neuralink has designed purpose built robotics to perform the surgery, as the sensors are too fine to be successfully implanted by a human being
