Elon Musk, founder of Neuralink Corp. an American neurotechnology company, has said that the first human patient implanted with a brain chip from Neuralink appears to have fully recovered and is able to control a computer mouse using his thoughts.
Musk and a team of seven scientists and engineers, founded Neuralink in 2016 and was first publicly reported in March 2017.
It is developing implantable brain–computer interfaces, based in Fremont, California, as of 2024.
‘Progress is good and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with neural effects that we are aware of,‘ Musk said in a Spaces event on X (Twitter).
‘Patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking.’
Musk said Neuralink is now trying to get as many mouse button clicks as possible from the patient.
Neuralink successfully implanted the ‘Telepathy’ chip on the patient last month, after receiving approval for human trial recruitment in September.
The identity of the first Neuralink patient is still unclear, however; MailOnline has contacted the firm for more information.
Neuralink’s tech uses a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move.
The system consists of a computer chip attached to tiny flexible threads stitched into the brain by a ‘sewing-machine-like’ robot.
The robot removes a small chunk of the skull, connects the thread-like electrodes to certain areas of the brain, stitches up the hole and the only visible remains is a scar left behind from the incision.
Musk said that this procedure takes just 30 minutes, does not require general anaesthesia, and patients will be able to return home on the same day.
It’s unclear if all these promises apply to the first patient to receive the implant, although Musk said he or she is ‘recovering well’.
But after Neuralink’s early trials saw 1,500 animals killed during rushed experiments, experts have raised serious concerns about the implant’s safety.
Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Dean Burnett, honorary research associate at Cardiff University, called the human trials ‘disconcerting and alarming.’
‘The speed at which [Musk] has gone from having no involvement in neurosurgical implants to making massive global statements is disconcerting and alarming,’ he said.
The company’s initial goal is to let people control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts and communicate wirelessly with the world – like ‘replacing a piece of the skull with a smartwatch’, Musk has said.
It would enable us to share our thoughts, fears, hopes and anxieties without demeaning ourselves with written or spoken language, the firm claims.
But it could also help paralysed people walk again and cure other neurological ailments.
Musk has also said that he’d be comfortable implanting a brain chip into one of his children, in response to a query.
‘I would say we’re at the point where at least, in my opinion, it would not be dangerous,’ he said.
Implanting ‘Telepathy’ in a human is part of Neuralink’s PRIME study, a trial to evaluate the safety of the implant and the surgical robot that does the procedure.
Musk has grand ambitions for Neuralink, saying it would facilitate speedy surgical insertions of its chip devices to treat conditions like obesity, autism, depression, and schizophrenia.
However, Neuralink, which was valued at about $5 billion last year, has faced repeated calls for scrutiny regarding its safety protocols and animal testing.
Neuralink has spent the past few years testing the implant on animals, which has given mixed results.
In a 2020 presentation, Musk unveiled the Neuralink chip to the public for the very first time, with a demonstration on a pig named Gertrude
Gertrude’s brain signals were visualised in real-time while she snuffled around her pen, that were being picked up by her implant.
Another pig involved in the demonstration had once had an implant but then had it removed and was living a ‘healthy life’.
The following year, Musk did another demonstration, which involved a macaque monkey with a brain chip that played a computer game by thinking alone.
However, in February 2022, Neuralink confirmed that monkeys had died during its tests, although denied any animal abuse.
The latter was in response to claims made by a non-profit the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) in a complaint with the US Department of Agriculture.
Concerns raised by PCRM in the complaint included an example of a monkey missing fingers and toes that may have been lost to ‘self mutilation’.
Whether you love him or hate him, Elon Musk is the mastermind behind some of the most ingenuous technology projects of the modern era.
The billionaire entrepreneur is the boss of carmaker Tesla, private space firm SpaceX and brain-computer interface startup Neuralink, among others.
