Elon Musk said on the social media platform X on [January 29] that the first human patient has received a brain implant developed by his company Neuralink.
After years of delays, Neuralink started recruiting patients for a clinical trial in the fall after receiving approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and a hospital ethics board. The company is developing a device called a brain-computer interface.
Musk has said that Neuralink’s ultimate goal is to “achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence,” but for now he’s starting with a far more modest aim: allowing paralyzed people to control a cursor or keyboard with their brains. In a brochure about the study, Neuralink says it is recruiting participants with quadriplegia, or paralysis in all four limbs, due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and that are at least 22 years old. It anticipates the study will take six years to complete.
Musk added that the patient was “recovering well” and that “initial results show promising neuron spike detection.” But it could be months before we know whether the patient can successfully use the implant to control a computer or other device. The person will have to recover from surgery, and training someone to use a BCI can take several weeks.
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