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Musk’s Neuralink is officially ready to implant chips in human brains

11 months ago babelfish

Musk's Neuralink is officially ready to implant chips in human brains

After several announcements, the histrionic Elon Musk has received the green light from the FDA to test his Neuralink chips on humans, which promise miracles for the treatment of serious health conditions. All the details

Since 2019 Elon Musk has announced on at least four occasions that his company Neuralink, founded in 2016, would begin human trials of a chip implanted in the brain to restore the ability to move and communicate to people with disabilities or to regain their sight in case of blindness.

Now that moment seems to have really arrived and, after various vicissitudes, yesterday the Food and Drug Administration (Fda), granted him the authorization to test the implants on humans.

ALL NEURALINK MAGNETS

The go-ahead from the FDA – which, however, earlier last year had rejected a previous request for authorization – comes at a time when Neuralink owes explanations to the regulatory authorities called to investigate some bungling involving the company.

As some employees told Reuters last December , the neurotechnology company ended up under the magnifying glass for animal abuse, as according to the testimonies collected "the tests conducted on animals are carried out in a hasty way, causing suffering and death useless". The company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, in experiments since 2018, according to the news agency.

Added to this is the allegation of potential mishandling of dangerous pathogens used during Neuralink's collaboration with the University of California for animal experiments between 2018 and 2020.

The company, based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Austin, Texas, is still under investigation over both matters.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE START OF TESTS ON HUMANS

In this climate, Neuralink announced on Twitter that the FDA approval "represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people".

However, the company did not provide details about the study's goals and scope. She merely said that recruitment was not yet underway and that more information would be available shortly.

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT NEURALINK CHIPS

According to Musk, recalls Reuters , brain implants could cure a number of pathologies such as obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia, as well as enable web browsing and telepathy.

Late last year, the billionaire even said he was so confident in the safety of the devices that he would be willing to implant them in his children. However, when the FDA rejected the first human testing approval request in 2022, it alerted Neuralink to several concerns that needed to be addressed.

The main problems, explains the Guardian , involved the device's lithium battery, the possibility of the implant wires migrating inside the brain and the challenge of extracting the device safely without damaging brain tissue.

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

But Musk's projects don't end there. In addition to plans to implant the chips to treat some serious conditions, Neuralink is working on devices that could one day be used to enhance the activities of the human brain, possibly to address its greatest fear, which is that machines will outrun man, as demonstrated by the letter signed by him and many others asking to pause the development of forms of artificial intelligence for at least 6 months.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/neuralink-di-musk-e-ufficialmente-pronta-a-impiantare-chip-nel-cervello-umano/ on Fri, 26 May 2023 09:56:07 +0000.