Elon Musk said his neurotechnology company Neuralink plans to put its first human brain chips next year.
Musk announced the schedule in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, answering a question about Neuralink’s 2022 goals. The billionaire mentioned the company’s success in placing monkey brain implants.
“The first people with our brain chips will suffer from severe spinal cord injuries such as tetraplegics, quadriplegics. This will happen in 2022, and we are still awaiting FDA approval“Musk said.
Tetraplegics and quadriplegics suffer from partial or complete paralysis of parts of the body. They cannot move on their own. It is believed that brain implants can be a solution that will drastically improve the lives of patients and even restore control over their limbs.
Musk’s plans were for human trials to begin in 2020, but the pandemic slowed his company’s progress. Meanwhile, several ambitious startups have emerged that also aim to place implants in the brain.
One of the co-founders of Neuralink mysteriously left, and a few months later founded a competitive startup in the field of neurology. Max Hodak’s company is called Science Corp. and offers a revolutionary approach to “human brain hacking.” She is currently working in “complete secrecy”, but has raised $ 48 million.
“Progress on Neuralink has been too slow“, shares Hodak.
The job advertisements published a few months ago showed that Science Corp was looking for specialists in stem cells, the CRISPR genetic editor, optical engineering and bioengineering. The company has also hired veterinarians, and the laboratory is as big as a store.
Ads for people with extensive knowledge of CRISPR and optical engineering make analysts recall previous experiments in which the brains of mice underwent genetic therapy and can be controlled with light pulses.
NeuroSWARM3 is another ambitious startup that aims to envelop the human brain with nanosensors that turn our thoughts and feelings into readable signals that can be transmitted to other people and machines.
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