US allows brain chip testing

Chips may soon be implanted in human brains in the US. FDA approves first clinical trials for Musk’s company Neuraling Before that, there were security concerns.

They should help paraplegics walk and cure neurological diseases: computer chips implanted in the human brain. Related trials may soon begin in the US – US officials have given the green light to human clinical trials. The announcement was made by Neuralink, a startup founded by Twitter boss Elon Musk.

“We are pleased to announce that we have received FDA approval to begin our first human clinical trial,” the company wrote on Twitter. Acknowledgment is an important first step that will one day make it possible to help people. The recruitment for the course has not started yet, but more information will be announced soon, the institute said.

So far only experiments have been conducted on animals

Implants made by Neuraling will allow minds to communicate directly with computers, Musk said at his December launch. “Obviously we want to be very careful and make sure that before we put a device on a human it works well,” he said at the time.

Musk wanted to start testing much earlier. But the company’s application for human clinical trials was rejected by the FDA in early 2022 due to safety concerns. The agency had concerns about the chip’s lithium battery and the implant’s wires. It’s also unclear how to remove the device without damaging brain tissue.

So far, roughly coin-sized prototypes have only been implanted in animals. In a Neuralink presentation, monkeys were shown using a brain chip to “play” simple video games or move a cursor on a screen.

Thanks for the chips and try running again

Kasturi wants to use interfaces to cure neurological diseases. The startup is currently developing other implants that can be placed in the spinal cord or eyes to restore movement or vision. Brain implants could also cure diseases like obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia, Musk says, as well as enable internet browsing and telepathy. Late last year she made headlines when she said she was so confident in the safety of the devices that she was willing to implant them in her children.

Neuralink isn’t the only company working on brain-computer interfaces. In July, rival Synchron announced it was the first company to implant a chip in the brain of a US patient.