Neuralink Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company, which develops invasive brain-computer interfaces, now intends to implant one of its implants in someone’s head within the next six months, although a year ago Elon Musk talked about the high probability of starting clinical trials of the Neura2 brain implant in 2 years . Elon Musk personally outlined the new time frame during an online presentation on November 30 and separately noted that he is going to put such a chip in his mind sometime in the future (when exactly, the billionaire did not specify).

Briefly about Neuralink, achievements and plans of the company

The startup Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Elon Musk and Max Khodak. According to Crunchbase, Neuralink has raised $373 million since its inception. Khodak himself left the position of president very unexpectedly and without explanation in 2021 and left the company — as it turned out recently, he created his own startup Science Corp. which does without implants and works through the optic nerve. Before that, several former employees of Neuralink told Stat News that chaos reigns at Neuralink, and scientists are under a lot of pressure due to very tight deadlines – as if Elon Musk demands the impossible and takes weeks to complete tasks that require months.

Neuralink’s goal is to create a relatively affordable device that can simply be implanted in the brain to communicate with a computer. Initially, there were plans to implant chips in paralyzed people so that they could freely use phones and computers. But over time, ambitions became bigger — studying brain activity in a wide range of diseases and disorders with the aim of treatment and full recovery. Previously, Musk said that Neuralink technologies will help solve many neurological problems, from memory loss to strokes, as well as monitor the health of users and warn of an approaching heart attack. In the long term, Neuralink hopes to create a chip that can restore full mobility to people with severe spinal cord injuries.

As has been repeatedly repeated, Neuralink did not invent brain-computer interfaces – they exist and live with people since 2006. At the same time, the Neuralink technology is distinguished by a different approach – thin flexible wires that are covered with electrodes for recording brain activity. Filaments have more electrodes than existing systems, so their throughput is much higher. In addition, they do not cause such serious damage as hard needles. Other advantages of the technology are compactness, modern electronics and high automation, which provides high-tech and very precise surgical manipulator robots. Neuralink has already created at least two versions of the invasive neurointerface – these are the ones that are known. The technological component of the technology was discussed in more detail in the previous text.

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As for animal testing, Neuralink started with rats and then tested the technology on pigs and monkeys. Remember how in April 2021 we were shown a monkey with an implanted chip playing ping pong on a PC with the power of thought.

What new Elon Musk said

During the presentation, Elon Musk said that Neuralink has already submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates the use of medical devices, almost all the necessary documents to start clinical trials on people. It should be recalled that initially the Neuralink neurointerface tests on humans were planned for the end of 2020, and then they were postponed for two years. And now the schedule has shifted by another six months. It is possible that this is not the last, given the complexity of the technology.

The monkeys are back this year – in a video demonstration, one of the tested macaques, using a chip implanted in the brain, helped to “type” the phrase “welcome to the Show and Tell presentation” by selecting the necessary letters and words on the on-screen keyboard.

Another video showed how monkeys were taught to charge their devices while sitting under a wireless charger. During the presentation in one of the videos, Neuralink researchers demonstrated a pig on a treadmill, which they said helped them get valuable data for solving the problem of human mobility in the future.

The Neuralink devices themselves in the current version are very compact, with a few flexible thread-like wires that can be inserted into the brain. “It’s like replacing part of your skull with a smartwatch, I can’t think of a better analogy,” Musk said.

The vice president of Implant and co-founder of Neuralink, DJ Seo, said that in about 15 minutes, 64 such “threads” can be implanted in the brain with the help of a robotic neurosurgeon developed by Neuralink. During the presentation, he used a mannequin to show how a future surgical operation might look like.

The need to use robots is due to the tiny size of these “threads” – the operation itself requires extreme accuracy and speed. The head of the Neuralink implementation technical team described the process as follows:

“Imagine taking a hair from your head and inserting it into the jelly, covered with plastic wrap, in the exact place and at the correct depth, and doing this 64 times in a reasonable amount of time.”

Previous demos in 2019 and 2020 were primarily run as recruitment promotions, and this one is no different; the company directly admitted that recruiting was the main goal of yesterday’s presentation. Musk emphasized that Neuralink currently offers many different jobs as the company moves “from prototype to commercial product.”

Full recording of the Neuralink Show and Tell broadcast

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In summary, the event, or rather most of it, turned out to be a technical presentation of the device – the developers shed more light on how the system was created, and also talked about the challenges the team faced along the way, how the technology has improved so far. what is planned next. Neuralink researchers said they are working on treatments that could help improve or restore vision and restore movement in people with paralysis. From the technical side, the company strives to ensure the possibility of easy device updates.

“I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want an iPhone 1 in your head if there’s an iPhone 14”

Elon Musk,

founder of Neuralink

Musk has previously said that the commercial version of the Neuralink chip will be a “pretty expensive” device at first, but eventually the company hopes to bring it down to a few thousand dollars and make it “similar to LASIK.” This is the most common method of excimer laser vision correction surgery.

In 2017, Elon Musk promised commercial neural interfaces for brain-computer communication in 8-10 years, and medical devices in four. In another old interview, he talked about the need to combine “biological and digital intelligence” as the next logical stage of human development.

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