Neural interfaces could offer entirely new ways for humans to connect with technology. Elon Musk said the first human user of his startup Neuralink's brain implant can now move a mouse cursor using only their mind.
Brain-machine interfaces have been around for decades, but they have primarily been research tools that are too complex and cumbersome for routine use. But in recent years, a number of startups have emerged promising to develop more capable and convenient devices that could help treat a variety of conditions.
Neuralink is one of the companies leading this charge. In September, the company announced that it had begun recruiting for the first clinical trial of its device after receiving clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year. Musk announced last week in a discussion on his social media platform
“Progress is good. The patient appears to have made a full recovery. He can control the mouse and move it around the screen with just his thoughts,” Musk said. CNN. “We’re trying to push as many buttons as possible through our thinking, and that’s what we’re working on right now.”
Controlling a cursor with a brain implant is nothing new. An academic team achieved the same feat in 2006. And Syncron, a competitor that makes a BMI implanted through brain blood vessels, has been conducting trials since 2021. Volunteers were able to control computers and smartphones with just their minds.
Nonetheless, Musk's announcement marks rapid progress for the company, which unveiled its first prototype in 2019. And while the company's technology works on similar principles to previous devices, it promises much greater precision and ease of use.
That's because each chip has 1,024 electrodes divided into 64 threads thinner than a human hair, which are inserted into the brain by a “sewing machine-like” robot. This is a much higher number of electrodes per unit volume than previous BMIs. This means that the device must be able to record from many individual neurons at once.
While most previous BMIs required patients to be wired to a bulky external computer, the company's N1 implant is wireless and has a rechargeable battery. This makes it possible to record brain activity during daily activities and greatly expands the research potential and prospects for using this as a medical device.
Wael Asaad, a professor of neurosurgery and neuroscience at Brown University, said the ability to record from individual neurons has so far been largely limited to animal studies. brown daily heraldSo being able to do the same in humans would be a significant advance.
“Most of the time, when we're working with humans, we're recording from a larger scale recording, the Local Field Potential, but we're not actually listening to individual neurons,” he said. “A high-resolution brain interface that is completely wireless and allows two-way communication with the brain would have many potential uses.”
In early clinical trials, the device's electrodes will be implanted in brain regions involved in motor control. But Musk has backed much more ambitious goals for the technology, including treating mental illnesses such as depression, allowing people to control advanced prosthetic limbs and even ultimately making it possible to merge the human mind with computers.
Justin Sanchez of Battelle, a non-profit research organization, said there is a long way to go before that becomes a reality. mad. Decoding something more complex than basic motor signals or speech will likely require recording from more neurons in different areas using multiple implants.
“Today there is a huge gap between understanding what is done in very small subsets of neurons and understanding complex thinking and more sophisticated cognitive kinds of tasks,” Sanchez said.
So, although the company's progress so far has been impressive, it will likely be some time before the technology is used for anything other than limited medical applications, especially given its invasiveness. This means that most of us will be using touchscreens for the foreseeable future.
Image credit: Neuralink