Elon Musk seeks volunteers for human trials of Neuralink brain chip

2023-09-22 17:14:44

After receiving approval from an independent review board, Neuralink, another company of businessman Elon Musk, will begin offering brain implants to paralyzed patients as part of the PRIME study, it was announced.

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The opening of human trials also comes more than a month after the brain chip startup raised $280 million in a funding round led by Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm created by Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire who also co-founded PayPal.

PRIME, short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface, is being carried out to evaluate both the safety and functionality of the implant.

According to CNN, patients in the trial will have a chip surgically placed in the part of the brain that controls the intention to move. The chip, installed by a robot, will record and send brain signals to an application, with the initial goal of “giving people the ability to control a computer’s cursor or keyboard using only their thoughts,” the company wrote. Elon Musk, owner of Neuralink’s (Credit. Social Networks).

Additionally, they detail that people with tetraplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) can participate in this six-year study: 18 months of home and clinic visits followed by follow-up visits for five years. Those interested can register in the patient registry on the Neuralink website.

The international media recalls that Musk has been working on Neuralink’s goal of using implants to connect the human brain to a computer for five years, but so far the company has only done tests on animals. The company also faced scrutiny after a monkey died in testing on a project in 2022 as part of efforts to get the animal to play Pong, one of the first video games.

Credit. Neuralink/YouTube

In May, Neuralink tweeted that it had received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct clinical trials in humans, an approval the agency acknowledged in a statement.

“We are very excited about the next chapter of Neuralink,” the company then wrote on X, the social network owned by Musk, formerly known as Twitter.

However, before Neuralink brain implants reach the general market, they will need approval from regulatory authorities. In 2021, the FDA published a document outlining its initial thoughts on brain-computer interface devices, noting that the field is “progressing rapidly.”