On Wednesday, Elon Musk said a wireless device developed by his brain chip company Neuralink is expected to begin human clinical trials in six months.
The company is developing brain chip interfaces that it says could allow disabled patients to move and communicate again. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Austin, Texas, neural link in recent years conducted animal testing as it sought U.S. regulatory approval to begin human clinical trials.
“We want to be extremely careful and make sure it’s going to work properly before we put a device in people, but we’ve already filed. I think most of our paperwork goes to the FDA and probably in the process. In about six months, we’ll be able to upload Neuralink in a human,” Musk said in a much-awaited public update on the device.
The event was originally scheduled for October 31 but musk postponed it just a few days before without giving a reason.
Neuralink’s last public presentation, over a year ago, involved a monkey with a brain chip playing a computer game by thinking alone.
Musk is known for his lofty goals like colonizing Mars and saving humanity. His ambitions for Neuralink, which he launched in 2016, are just as grand. He wants to develop a chip that will allow the brain to control complex electronic devices and eventually allow paralyzed people to regain motor function and treat brain diseases such as Parkinson’s, dementia, and dementia. Alzheimer. He also talks about combining the brain with artificial intelligence.
However, Neuralink is running behind schedule. Musk said in a 2019 presentation that he was aiming to get regulatory approval by the end of 2020. He then said at a conference in late 2021 that he hopes to start trying it out. human trials this year.
Neuralink has repeatedly missed internal deadlines for FDA approval to begin human trials, current and former employees said. Earlier this year, Musk approached competitor Synchron about a potential investment after he expressed frustration with Neuralink employees about their slow progress, Reuters reported in August.
Sync passed a major milestone in July by implanting its device in a patient in the United States for the first time. It received a US regulatory license for human trials in 2021 and has completed studies in 4 people in Australia.
© Thomson Reuters 2022
