Elon Musk hopes to test brain implant in humans next year

The tech multi-billionaire said his company, Neuralink, was seeking government approval to test its device on people, and predicted that could happen in six months. Others have been performing similar tests for years, but no devices have made it to market.

In a presentation showcasing the Neuralink implant that Elon Musk hopes will connect one day the human brain to a computer, two monkeys are said to have moved computer cursors with their brains.

The exploit was first documented by others in a human in 2006 in the pre-YouTube era and with technology it's much more cumbersome, mooring patients to a computer with a cord.

M . Musk's presentation on Wednesday night offered few significant new features compared to previous demonstrations of the device. He went on to claim that the implant could make computer control possible for people with paralysis outside of a lab. But experts in the field questioned whether the demo showed major progress with the device, especially given the scale of work underway nationwide.

"These are incremental advances," Daniel Yoshor, a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine who has worked with similar devices, said after watching the presentation. "The material is impressive but does not represent a dramatic advance in restoring or improving brain function."

Neuralink does not have the endorsement of the Food and Drug Administration to sell the device. Mr. Musk said on Wednesday that the company had submitted most of its documents to the agency to seek permission to implant its device in a human. He predicted a human test in six months, but any steps toward human trials would be up to the F.D.A. after a full assessment of the risks of surgical implantation and the safety of the device.

Neuralink originally scheduled the event for late October, before Mr. Musk, a multi-billionaire, postponed the presentation amid one of the most chaotic months of his career. He recently completed his on-and-off purchase of Twitter, which has focused much of his attention - and generated considerable controversy - on the management of the social media company.

As Mr Musk juggles this and other tasks – he also oversees electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX – Neuralink is emerging from a period of change. Last year, Max Hodak, the company's president and one of its co-founders, left to start his own business in the field. Neuralink's chief executive is officially Jared Birchall, a wealth manager who runs Mr. Musk's family office.

Wednesday evening's presentation focused on the "Link" device, which looks like an inch-wide stack of several pieces with hundreds of fine wires. A surgical robot would drill a hole in the skull and slide electrode wires into the brain's gray matter, according to Mr. Musk's 2020 company presentation. The coin-shaped piece would sit flush with the skull.

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Leaders in brain-computer interface technology are keeping a close eye on Neuralink's investment in a device that works without protruding wires or hardware. Yet Mr. Musk's presentations so far have concerned and disappointed many.

A 2021 Neuralink presentation of a monkey playing the game video Pong with her mind resembled a demonstration primate at Brown University in 2001, although she had a much clumsier system.

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