HOME > AFP-JIJI PRESS NEWS JOURNAL > Article
Musk's Neuralink says cleared for human test of brain implants
Elon Musk's start-up Neuralink on Thursday said it has approval from US regulators to test its brain implants in people.
Neuralink said clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its first in-human clinical study is an important first step for its technology, which is intended to let brains interface directly with computers.
We are excited to share that we have received the FDA's approval to launch our first-in-human clinical study, Neuralink said in a post on Musk-run Twitter.
Recruitment for a clinical trial is not yet open, according to Neuralink.
The aim of Neuralink implants is to enable human brains to communicate directly with computers, Musk said during a presentation by the start-up in December.
We've been working hard to be ready for our first human (implant), and obviously we want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device in a human, he said at the time.
Neuralink prototypes, which are the size of a coin, have been implanted in the skulls of monkeys, demonstrations by the startup showed.
At a presentation, Neuralink showed several monkeys playing basic video games or moving a cursor on a screen through their Neuralink implant.
The technology has also been tested in pigs.
With the help of a surgical robot, a piece of the skull is replaced with a Neuralink disk, and its wispy wires are strategically inserted into the brain, an early demonstration showed.
The disk registers nerve activity, relaying the information via common Bluetooth wireless signal to a device such as a smartphone, according to Musk.
It actually fits quite nicely in your skull, Musk said during a prior presentation.
It could be under your hair and you wouldn't know.
- Uploading memories? -
Musk said the company would try to use the implants to restore vision and mobility in humans who had lost such abilities.
We would initially enable someone who has almost no ability to operate their muscles... and enable them to operate their phone faster than someone who has working hands, he said.
As miraculous as it may sound, we are confident that it is possible to restore full body functionality to someone who has a severed spinal cord, he said.
Beyond the potential to treat neurological diseases, Musk's ultimate goal is to ensure that humans are not intellectually overwhelmed by artificial intelligence (AI), he said.
Other companies working on similar systems include Synchron, which announced in July that it had implanted the first human brain-machine interface in the United States.
Members of the Neuralink team have shared a wish list that ranged from technology returning mobility to the paralyzed and sight to the blind, to enabling telepathy and the uploading of memories for later reference -- or perhaps to be downloaded into replacement bodies.
Meanwhile, Musk recently established a business devoted to developing sophisticated AI. The boss of Tesla has also predicted that autonomous driving technology at the electric car maker is heading for a breakthrough.
Musk has contended that synching minds with machines is vital if people are going to avoid being so outpaced by AI that, under the best of circumstances, humans would be akin to house cats.
Experts and academics remain cautious about his vision of symbiotically merging minds with super-powered computing.
(2023/05/26 17:12)
Click Here for Japanese TranslationAFP-JIJI PRESS NEWS JOURNAL
- 05/26 17:13 Australia told to shoot kangaroos before they starve
- 05/26 17:12 Musk's Neuralink says cleared for human test of brain implants
- 05/26 17:11 US Navy probe finds major problems with SEAL training
- 05/26 17:10 Peru seizes cocaine bricks wrapped in Nazi insignia
- 05/26 17:09 Animal rights activists 'rescue' lambs from farm on royal estate
- 05/26 17:04 South Korea hails successful launch of homegrown rocket
- 05/25 19:35 Miami zoo's meet-a-kiwi scheme ruffles feathers in New Zealand
- 05/25 19:31 $6 mn raised to preserve Nina Simone's childhood home
- 05/25 19:26 Barcelona veteran Alba leaving club after 11 years
- 05/25 19:21 'Wide open' for business-- Russia makes play for Gulf money
- 05/25 19:08 French defender Le Normand obtains Spanish nationality
- 05/25 19:00 US top health official sounds alarm on child social media use
- 05/24 17:36 Netflix expands password-sharing crackdown worldwide
- 05/24 17:33 Police search Portugal reservoir in Madeleine McCann case
- 05/24 17:32 Mexico raises alert level as volcano ejects smoke, ash, lava
- 05/24 17:31 Taiwan says last wartime 'comfort woman' dies at 92
- 05/24 17:29 New Zealand fights to save its flightless national bird
- 05/24 17:25 Spain arrests seven over Vinicius racism incidents
- 05/23 17:05 Climate-- 'dangerous heat' could afflict billions by 2100
- 05/23 17:03 Harvard study finds implicit racial bias highest among white people
- 05/23 17:00 New Zealand sheep outnumber people less than 5 to 1, a record low
- 05/23 16:58 Macron makes first French presidential visit to Mongolia
- 05/23 16:56 Godard's afterlife begins at Cannes
- 05/23 16:53 Spain opens investigation into racist abuse of Vinicius
- 05/22 17:22 Private mission carrying Saudi astronauts launches to ISS
- 05/22 17:20 Guitar smashed by Nirvana's Kurt Cobain sells for nearly $600,000
- 05/22 17:19 Building 'Mad Max' vehicles for Ukraine's fighters
- 05/22 17:18 Paris sees success in bringing Zelensky to G7
- 05/22 17:16 'I love being older', says Harrison Ford as he retires Indiana Jones
- 05/22 17:14 After SpaceX, NASA taps Bezos's Blue Origin to build Moon lander
- 05/19 18:43 London show explores sari's 21st century reinvention
- 05/19 17:15 DNA study of famed US sled dog shows what made him so tough
- 05/19 17:12 India's top court upholds bull-taming festival
- 05/19 17:11 Turks in Germany hope for citizenship law overhaul
- 05/19 17:07 Italy flood deaths rise to 13 as thousands wait to come home
- 05/19 17:06 Nadal pulls out of French Open, set to end career in 2024