Tech billionaire Elon Musk says his Neuralink company has successfully implanted one of its wireless brain chips in a human for the first time.
Initial results detected promising neuron spikes or nerve impulses and the patient is recovering well, he said.
The company’s goal is to connect human brains to computers and it says it wants to help tackle complex neurological conditions.
While Mr Musk’s involvement raises the profile of Neuralink, he faces rivals, some of who have a track record dating back two decades. Utah-based Blackrock Neurotech implanted its first of many brain-computer interfaces in 2004.
Musk hopes his company will be able to connect human brains to computers, and cure a range of conditions, including obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia, as well as enabling web browsing and telepathy.
ELon Musk via X(Twitter)
Precision Neuroscience, formed by a Neuralink co-founder, also aims to help people with paralysis. And its implant resembles a very thin piece of tape that sits on the surface of the brain and can be implanted via a “cranial micro-slit”, which it says is a much simpler procedure.
Existing devices have also generated results. In two separate recent US scientific studies, implants were used to monitor brain activity when a person tried to speak, which could then be decoded to help them communicate.