In May, Musk’s company announced that it had received the green light from the Food and Drug Administration to conduct the first tests on humans. Recruitment of volunteers began at the end of last year. Neuralink has already conducted extensive studies on implants in animals, drawing criticism from many activists who say the company has abused animal rights by violating the Animal Welfare Act, the law that regulates how researchers can treat and experiment on certain animals .
The objective of the first test
Neuralink’s goal, with this first intervention, is to demonstrate that the device can safely collect useful data from the part of the brain – the premotor cortex – that manages the patient’s arms and hands. And then convert a person’s thoughts into a series of commands that a computer can understand.
It should be said that several companies and research groups have already created implants that can help patients perform basic tasks with thought, such as clicking on objects on a screen with a cursor. Neuralink, however, has set itself much more ambitious goals, in the style of Elon Musk.
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