(San Francisco) Elon Musk announced that the first patient to receive a brain implant from Neuralink, a startup he co-founded, was now able to control a computer mouse with his mind.
Posted at 3:00 p.m.
“The progress is good, the patient seems to have fully recovered, with no known side effects.” And he is able to control the mouse and move it on the screen using thoughts alone,” said the multi-billionaire on Monday evening during a conversation in an X audio lounge (Spaces).
The head of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X announced at the end of January that Neuralink had used its first brain implant in a patient as part of its initial clinical trials.
Several other labs and companies have already succeeded in similar operations, allowing patients to perform computer tasks using their minds and even regain control of some of their limbs.
“We’re trying to get as much thought pressure as possible,” Musk continued. “We are currently working on the ability to click the mouse left and right and move it up and down. This is necessary if you want to click on something and drag it to another location.
Neuralink, based in Fremont, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, received the green light from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May.
NEURALINK PHOTO PROVIDED BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Elon Musk presentation for Neuralink in February 2020
His coin-sized implant has already been inserted into the brain of a macaque monkey who managed to play the video game “Pong” without a controller or keyboard.
Founded in 2016, Neuralink is far from the only organization developing a brain-machine interface (BMI).
For example, in 2019, researchers at the Grenoble Clinatec Institute presented an implant that allows a paraplegic person to animate an exoskeleton and move or move their arms.
Neuralink recently raised around $323 million from investors in two tranches, in August and November.
According to its own information, the start-up also wants to make paralyzed patients walk again, but also restore sight to blind people and even cure psychiatric illnesses such as depression.
Elon Musk also wants to offer his implant to everyone to enable better communication with computers and curb what he believes is a “risk to our civilization” that artificial intelligence poses.