Neuralinkanother of the companies led by the billionaire businessman Elon Muskhas received the green light to begin testing its brain implants in humans. Specifically, the approval of an independent review committee allows these first tests to be carried out in patients with paralysis.
Specifically, it will be the people with paralysis due to injury of the cervical spinal cord or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, who can participate in the study. Of course, although it has not been announced how many humans will be tested for a Neuralink brain implant, at least we know that the trial will take about six years to complete.
The person in charge of implanting Neuralink brain chips in humans will be a robot
Neuralink revealed that a surgical robot will be used to incorporate the brain-computer interface (BCI) implant. This implant will be placed in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move. The initial objective of this implant is to allow people with paralysis to control the cursor or keyboard of a computer using only your thoughts.
Before it received approval to begin testing its brain implants, Neuralink was seeking approval to implant their device in 10 humans. After the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised safety concerns, a smaller number of patients would have been negotiated. After receiving the green light to begin testing, it is unknown how many people will undergo these tests.
Elon Musk has big intentions with Neuralink. Their implants will not only help grant greater independence to people with paralysis. As if we were talking about a video game, there will be different types of implants, which will help solve other conditions such as obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia. In this way, it is possible that in the future it will be very common to use brain chips to solve these and other health problems.
Of course, according to experts, even if this BCI implant is safe for human use, Neuralink could take more than a decade in obtaining authorization to its commercial use.
Goodbye to animals for testing, they will be replaced by humans
It must be remembered that, at the end of 2022, Neurallink was investigated for animal abuse. Specifically, Neuralink testing began with the use of animals. It was for this reason that a federal investigation was initiated alleging “animal abuse and death” linked to the experiments carried out with their brain chips.
Due to multiple failed experiments, Neuralink would reportedly be linked with the death of about 1,500 animals since they began their experiments in 2018. Specifically, we are talking about more than 280 dead sheep, pigs and monkeys.
At least four experiments involving 86 pigs and 2 monkeys were affected due to human errors. Neurallink’s latest milestone was making a monkey able to play Pong with its mind thanks to this brain implant. In this way, it can already be said that the technology has reached a high level of maturity. to start human testing.
