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REUTERS: Billionaire Elon Musk’s neuroscience startup Neuralink revealed on Friday (August 28) a pig named Gertrude who has had a coin-sized computer chip in its brain for two months, showing a first step towards it. goal of curing human diseases with the same type of implant.
Co-founded by Tesla Inc and the CEO of SpaceX Musk in 2016, Neuralink, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, aims to implant wireless brain-computer interfaces that include thousands of electrodes in the most complex human organ to help heal neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s, dementia, and the spine. cord injury and ultimately merge humanity with artificial intelligence.
“An implantable device can really solve these problems,” Musk said in a webcast on Friday, citing ailments such as memory loss, hearing loss, depression and insomnia.
Musk did not provide a timeline for those treatments, and appears to be backing away from earlier statements that human trials would begin later this year. Neuralink’s first clinical trials with a small number of human patients would be aimed at treating paralysis or paraplegia, said the company’s chief surgeon, Dr. Matthew MacDougall.
Neuroscientists unaffiliated with the company said the presentation indicated that Neuralink had made great strides, but warned that longer studies were needed.
Musk presented what he described as the “three little pigs demo.” Gertrude, the sow with a Neuralink implant in the part of her brain that controls the snout, required Musk to persuade her to appear on camera, but she eventually started eating from a stool and sniffing a straw, which triggered spikes in a graphic that tracks the animal’s nerves. exercise.
Musk said the company had three pigs with two implants each, and also revealed a pig that previously had one implant. They were “healthy, happy and indistinguishable from a normal pig,” Musk said. Musk said the company predicted the movement of a pig’s limbs during a treadmill run with “high precision” using implant data.
Musk described the Neuralink chip, which is about 0.9 inches (23 millimeters) in diameter, as “a Fitbit in your skull with little wires.”
“I could have a Neuralink right now and you wouldn’t know it,” Musk said. “… Maybe I will.”
A comment from a webcast viewer described the animals as “Cypork.”
Graeme Moffat, a neuroscience researcher at the University of Toronto, said Neuralink’s advances were “leaps of order of magnitude” beyond current science thanks to the new chip’s size, portability, power management and wireless capabilities.
Stanford University neuroscientist Sergey Stavisky said the company had made substantial and impressive progress since an initial demonstration of a previous chip in July 2019.
“Going from that to the system fully implanted in various pigs they showed is impressive and, I think, it really highlights the strengths of having a great multidisciplinary team focused on this problem,” Stavisky said.
Some researchers said that longer studies would be needed to determine the longevity of the device.
The Neuralink chip could also improve understanding of neurological diseases by reading brain waves, one of the company’s scientists said during the presentation.
RECRUIT, NOT FUND RAISE
Musk said the focus of Friday’s event was recruiting, not fundraising. Musk has a history of bringing together diverse experts to dramatically accelerate the development of innovations previously limited to academic labs, including rocket, hyperloop and electric vehicle technologies through companies like Tesla and SpaceX.
Neuralink has received $ 158 million in funding, $ 100 million of which comes from Musk, and employs about 100 people.
Musk, who frequently warns about the risks of artificial intelligence, said the implant’s most important achievement beyond medical applications would be “some kind of AI symbiosis where you have an AI extension of yourself.”
Small devices that electronically stimulate nerves and areas of the brain have been implanted in humans for decades to treat hearing loss and Parkinson’s disease. Brain implant trials have also been done with a small number of people who have lost control of bodily functions due to spinal cord injuries or neurological conditions such as strokes.
Startups like Kernel, Paradromics, and NeuroPace are also trying to exploit advances in signaling, wireless, and materials technology to create Neuralink-like devices. In addition, medical device giant Medtronic PLC produces brain implants to treat Parkinson’s disease, essential tremors and epilepsy.
