Neuralink to Start Accepting Human Volunteers

Last week, Subverse took a look into what Elon Musk was doing with his brain-computer interface (BCI) company Neuralink. Earlier this week the business magnate presented more information on the product, the timeline for surgery on humans, as well as more details on how they would be achieving such a feat.

The brain-machine interface (BMI) presented by Musk late Tuesday night showed an iteration on the initial concept of utilizing neural lace, a synthetic netting that is placed over the brain. The initial concept, an invasive procedure of inserting threads directly into the brain, was chosen out of three prototypes. The chip presented allows for the threads to transmit signals from the brain to a USB-C port, and Bluetooth technology. The goal is an interface that connects to wires and is neatly tucked behind the ear like a hearing aid.

Musk hopes to begin human trials in 2020, specifically on patients who have physical disabilities and paralysis with hopes to utilize the technology for ‘thought-to-text’. Leigh Hochberg, a professor at Brown University called the update, “novel and exciting,” and stated in an interview with Scientific American that, “Given the great potential that intracortical brain-computer interfaces have to restore neurologic function for people with spinal cord injury, stroke [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis], traumatic…