Neuralink is making rapid progress in brain engineering. In the short term, hope; in the medium term, a concern.

by Laboratory of the Future analysis team | Jun 28, 2023 | Transhumanism

Neuralink has already received the first approval to test its brain implants on humans.

The company began in 2022 the process with the pharmaceutical regulator to conduct clinical trials of its chip. In the short term, it opens hope for the relief of a range of medical problems, while in the medium term, it represents fuel for transhumanism, a matter that has sparked deep discussions, as it could radically alter human life and the mind.

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain chip company, announced it has received the green light from the pharmaceutical regulator to conduct its first human trial. The controversial entrepreneur predicted in December that approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency overseeing products, medicines, and surgical procedures in the U.S., would arrive during the first half of this year. He was right, although the approval wasn’t easy, as they were rejected last year. The company, founded in 2016, reported that this is the first step that will allow its technology to “help many people.”

“Recruitment is not yet open for our clinical trial,” the company posted on Twitter, promising more information in the coming days. Neuralink has been raising expectations about its advancements for several years. In 2020, Musk stated in a presentation that the chips manufactured by the company could cure some types of paralysis and certain cases of insomnia. The controversial magnate, who has often been careless with his words, even claimed that the device could give users “superhuman” vision. At that time, they showcased one of their first implants, in a pig.

A year later, in 2021, Neuralink made one of its most viral presentations. A monkey, Pager, appeared in front of a TV and attentively watched what was happening on the screen, a game of Pong. The primate controlled the game just by looking, thanks to a pair of semiconductors the size of a 25-cent coin implanted in both hemispheres of its brain.

Musk said a few months ago that they had started “extremely careful” paperwork with the FDA and were working with the agency. “I think probably in six months we will be able to put our first Neuralink in a human,” said the controversial billionaire, who recently helped Florida Governor Ron DeSantis launch his 2024 U.S. presidential campaign on Twitter.

Before this, Musk had claimed at least three times since 2019 that he was seeking FDA approval for clinical trials in humans. But it wasn’t until 2022 that the company started the legal process with the regulator. According to Reuters, this first request was rejected by the FDA authorities shortly after being submitted. The regulator was concerned about the safety of the battery used in the semiconductor, which is made of lithium. There were also worries that the small cables extending from the brain could be invasive in other areas of the skull. Finally, the regulators also raised questions about the implications of removing the chip and whether this process could damage brain tissue.

A report from the British agency cited experts who doubted whether Neuralink could quickly address the concerns raised by the government agency, which had the final say in 85% of human trials conducted in the last three years. “Neuralink doesn’t seem to have the necessary experience or mindset to launch this on the market soon,” said a neural engineer quoted in the piece published in March.

Neuralink is not the only company preparing to conduct the first human trials of its technology. One of its main competitors, Paradromics, is also seeking approval. Founded in 2015, the Austin-based company has made giant strides with its implants and has grown its team to become a rising player with around fifty researchers. Its product, called Connexus Direct Data, promises patients with paralysis to regain some communication skills.

The promising profile of its technology led the FDA to include it in its select program for cutting-edge devices, where 32 initiatives receive a faster review process, as they could benefit patients in their treatments and diagnoses. Another company competing in the emerging brain implant industry is Synchron. The companies differ in the size, weight, and functioning of their semiconductors and in the surgical methods for implantation. However, all see the future and the benefits they could bring to millions of people with optimism.

Elon Musk’s transhumanist company receives the green light to test brain implants on humans.

by Laboratory of the Future analysis team | Jun 25, 2023 | Transhumanism

Neuralink, one of Elon Musk’s companies, received authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for brain implant experimentation on humans, a matter that, for now – we will have to believe in it wholeheartedly – had only been developed in animals. Initially, the authorization is limited to seeking an improvement (talking about a cure is premature at the moment), a restoration in seriously damaged brain conditions. By the way, it’s well understood that these are steps toward transhumanism. And speaking of transhumanism…

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s company, announced that it has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct human studies of its brain implants, which have so far been tested only on animals.

The company revealed the FDA’s green light for the first human trials on its Twitter account. “This represents an important first step that will someday allow our technology to help many people,” the company wrote.

In early December, Musk had assured that Neuralink, a company that has not been without controversy due to its animal experiments, was ready to conduct brain implants in humans within six months.

At that time, Musk noted that the FDA had expressed concerns about the potential overheating of the implant (which includes microcables in the brain tissue), as it could lead to chemical leakage from the implant into the brain mass.

The implant’s function will be to “read” brain activity to transmit commands that could help restore some severely damaged brain functions after a stroke or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which result in serious communication impairments.

So far, brain implants have been developed in one direction: from the brain to the outside (usually a computer that processes the signals), but Neuralink’s project aims to also transfer information in the other direction, toward the brain.

Neuralink is developing two types of implants in parallel: one to restore vision “even in those who have never had it” and another to restore basic bodily functions in people with paralysis due to spinal cord damage.

Now, let’s talk a little about Neuralink, the company that is pioneering all of this and that we will need to watch closely in the future to observe its evolution and particularly its developments.

Neuralink Corporation is an American neurotechnology company specialized in the development of implantable brain-computer interfaces, also known as Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMI), founded by Elon Musk. They are currently developing a device capable of treating patients suffering from disabilities caused by neurological disorders through direct brain stimulation. And, according to Musk’s statements, the technology developed by Neuralink aims, in the long term, to achieve total symbiosis with artificial intelligence. Currently, it is conducting experiments on animals in collaboration with the University of California, Davis.

Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Elon Musk, Ben Rapoport, Dongjin Seo, Max Hodak, Paul Merolla, Philip Sabes, Tim Gardner, Tim Hanson, and Vanessa Tolosa.

In April 2017, the blog Wait But Why reported that the company aimed to manufacture devices to treat serious brain diseases in the short term, with the ultimate goal of human enhancement, sometimes called transhumanism. Musk said his interest in the idea partly stemmed from the science fiction concept of the “neural lace” in the fictional universe of The Culture, a series of 10 novels by Iain M. Banks.

Musk defined the neural lace as a “digital layer above the cortex” that would not necessarily require extensive surgical insertion, but ideally an implant through a vein or artery. Musk explained that the long-term goal is to achieve “symbiosis with artificial intelligence,” which he perceives as an existential threat to humanity if not controlled. As of 2017, some neural prosthetics can interpret brain signals and allow disabled individuals to control their prosthetic arms and legs. Musk spoke of aiming to link that technology with implants that, instead of activating movement, could interact at broadband speed with other types of software and external devices.

As of 2020, Neuralink is headquartered in the Mission District of San Francisco, sharing the old Pioneer factory building with OpenAI, another company co-founded by Musk. Musk was the majority owner of Neuralink in September 2018, but did not hold an executive position. The role of CEO was held by Jared Birchall, who has also been described as the financial director and president of Neuralink, as well as an executive for several other companies that Musk founded or co-founded. The trademark “Neuralink” was purchased from its previous owners in January 2017.

By August 2020, only two of the eight founding scientists remained with the company, according to an article in Stat News, which reported that Neuralink had faced “years of internal conflict in which rushed timelines clashed with the slow, incremental pace of science.” With Musk in the picture, this should not have been surprising.

Since its founding, the Neuralink team has been characterized by its high level of discretion in revealing information, as the company’s existence was not announced to the public until 2017, and information about the technology they were developing was not revealed until 2019.

The company has received $158 million in funding, of which $100 million has been invested by Musk himself, and it currently has 90 employees.

The “Neuralink” trademark was acquired from its previous owners in January 2017.

The company is made up of experts from various fields such as neuroscience, biochemistry, robotics, applied mathematics, machinery, among others. It is currently seeking experts in various scientific areas to form its team.

Its founding members are:

• Elon Musk.
• Max Hodak, President of the company. Previously worked on brain-computer interfaces at Duke University.
• Matthew McDougall, Head of Neurosurgery at Neuralink and neurosurgeon at the California Pacific Medical Center. He was previously employed at Stanford, where he worked in labs that implanted and designed brain-computer interfaces.
• Vanessa Tolosa, Director of Neural Interfaces. She previously led a neurotechnology team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, working with a wide range of technological prosthesis technology used in both clinical and academic settings.
• DJ Seo, Director of the Implantation System. He was the co-inventor of “neural dust,” a technology he developed while studying at UC Berkeley.
• Philip Sabes, Senior Scientist. He was previously a Professor of Physiology at UC San Francisco and led a lab studying how the brain processes sensory and motor signals.
• Tim Gardner, Professor of Biology at Boston University, who worked on implanting brain-computer interfaces in birds.
• Ben Rapoport, Neurosurgeon with a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.
• Tim Hanson, Researcher at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center.

Neuralink aims in the short term to create brain-computer interfaces that can treat various diseases caused by neurological disorders. These interfaces have the potential to help people with a wide range of clinical disorders. Researchers have demonstrated that, using these interfaces, patients have been able to control computer cursors, robotic prosthetics, and speech synthesizers. This demonstrates their potential use in the medical field to treat patients with disabilities due to neurological disorders. All studies experimenting with brain-computer interfaces have been carried out using systems that do not have more than 256 electrodes.

Neuralink is building a fully integrated Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) system, also known as BMI (Brain-Machine Interface). BCIs can be used to treat neurological disorders and reveal information about brain functions. Karageorgos et al. have introduced HALO (Hardware Architecture for Low-Power BCIs), an architecture for implantable BCIs, which enables the treatment of disorders such as epilepsy. HALO also records and processes data that can be used for a better understanding of the brain.

Epilepsy is characterized by epileptic seizures defined by uncontrolled and excessive electrical activity of neurons. Neural signals are processed to predict seizures. When an increase in brain excitation occurs, the brain requires inhibitory synapses to attenuate and regulate the activity of other cells. BCIs then electrically stimulate neurons to mitigate the severity of seizures. However, the time between the onset of the seizure and stimulation must be in tens of milliseconds. Additionally, low-power hardware is needed for safe and chronic implantation.

Although such studies have demonstrated that information transfer between machines and the brain is possible, the development of brain-computer interfaces has been limited by their inability to collect information from a greater number of neurons. For this reason, Neuralink’s team seeks to develop a device capable of increasing the order of magnitude of neurons from which information can be extracted and stimulated safely and durably through a simple and automated procedure. In other words, collecting information and selectively stimulating as many neurons as possible across various areas of the brain.

The long-term goal is for brain-computer interfaces to be available to the general public and integrated as essential technology in daily life, similar to how technologies like mobile phones or laptops are currently essential in everyday life.

Musk has repeatedly stated his belief that artificial intelligence poses a risk to humans due to the possibility that it may surpass human abilities. For him, the best solution to the problem would be, instead of continuing to develop AI systems external to humans, to achieve total symbiosis with artificial intelligence so that it can be controlled. This could be achieved by creating a layer of artificial intelligence over the cerebral cortex, a system that is being developed with Neuralink.

Musk’s interest in brain-computer interfaces began, in part, due to the influence of a science fiction concept called “Neural Lace,” which is part of the fictional universe described in The Culture, a series of novels written by Iain Banks.

People could become telepathic and communicate without words by accessing thoughts. Beyond thoughts, sensory experiences could be communicated from human to human, like neural postmen, where listening, seeing, and tasting something could be possible. Alternatively, life experiences such as enjoying a meal or skydiving could be virtually lived and offer sensations as if they were real. It is more plausible that within the next 20 years, it will be possible to create images of what people are thinking.

BCIs might also offer opportunities to enhance the brain itself, whether invasive or non-invasive. BCIs could help us remember more and better, learn faster, make better decisions, and solve problems without bias, in exchange for having to go through hard training.

Currently, artificial intelligence (AI) “is an important technological tool that enables the operation of many neural interfaces.” BMIs use AI to convert neural signals into digital data, for example, to interpret instructions from the brain to move a prosthetic arm. In the future, a more complex relationship between BCIs and AI could emerge. Computers and brains are different, but they could be seen as complementary. Humans have decision-making ability and emotional intelligence, while computers have the capacity to process a considerable amount of data quickly. This is why several technology experts believe that beneficial impacts for people could arise by linking human and artificial intelligence through BMIs.

In 2019, during a live presentation at the California Academy of Sciences, Neuralink’s team revealed to the public the technology behind the first prototype they had been working on. This system involves ultrathin probes that will be inserted into the brain, a neurosurgical robot that will perform the operations, and a high-density electronic system capable of processing information from neurons.

According to Neuralink’s team, the system they are developing will use biocompatible probes that will be inserted into the brain through an automated process performed by a surgical robot. The goal of these probes is to locate electrical signals in the brain using a series of electrodes connected to them. This experiment has already been performed with a monkey, which was given the ability to play Pong telepathically. Elon Musk hopes that this invention will serve future humanity in communicating telepathically.

The probes developed by Neuralink are designed to be biocompatible, minimizing the possibility of the body rejecting them. These probes are mainly made of polyamide, a flexible and durable material, and coated with a thin layer of gold, making them compatible with the brain’s biological environment. The combination of these materials reduces the likelihood of the brain perceiving them as foreign objects and rejecting them, which is a common concern with long-term brain implants.

Each probe consists of a set of thin threads containing electrodes capable of detecting the brain’s electrical signals. These threads interact with an electronic system that amplifies and acquires brain signals, enabling the collection of highly precise data. Each probe may have 48 or 96 threads, and each of these threads contains 32 independent electrodes, allowing a configuration with up to 3072 electrodes. This large number of electrodes provides much more detailed and comprehensive signal capture across several areas of the brain, which is crucial for Neuralink’s goals in restoring or enhancing brain functions.

One of the main challenges of this type of technology is the rigidity of the probes. When inserted into the brain, rigid materials can be recognized as foreign bodies, triggering an immune response from the body, creating scar tissue around the implant. This can lead to the probes becoming ineffective over time. To mitigate this problem, Neuralink has developed a surgical robot capable of inserting multiple flexible probes quickly and precisely, reducing brain trauma and the possibility of an immune response.

The robot features an extremely thin insertion needle, with a diameter of only 40 micrometers, made of tungsten-rhenium, a highly durable and resistant material. This needle is designed to hook onto the loops of the probes and place them with great precision in the areas of the brain necessary for signal recording. This process is automated, increasing accuracy and reducing the risks associated with traditional surgical interventions.

In summary, Neuralink is developing a technology that, thanks to the flexibility of its probes and the precision of the surgical robot, has the potential to transform the way we treat neurological disorders, and could even open the door to more advanced future applications like telepathic communication or cognitive enhancement through integration with artificial intelligence.