Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, announced on X (formerly Twitter) that Neuralink, one of his companies, has successfully implanted a wireless brain chip in a human. According to Musk, “promising” brain activity has been detected, and the patient is “recovering well.” Neuralink’s goal is to connect human brains to computers to address complex neurological conditions. While some rival firms have made similar advances, there has been no independent verification of Musk’s claims, and Neuralink has not provided details about the procedure. The company faced criticism in the past for animal testing, but it received FDA approval to test the chip on humans in May 2023.
Neuralink’s experimental implant involves surgically placing 64 flexible threads, thinner than a human hair, on a part of the brain that controls movement intention. The threads allow the implant to record and transmit brain signals wirelessly to an app, decoding the person’s intended movements. Musk mentioned that Neuralink’s first product, called Telepathy, aims to enable control of devices through thought. Initial users would be those who have lost the use of their limbs. While such brain-computer interfaces show potential for helping individuals with neurological disorders, they are still in experimental stages and may take years to become widely available.