Neuralink, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, for the first time implanted its device – which seeks to help patients with severe paralysis or degenerative diseases control external tech using only neural signals – in a human Sunday, and Musk said the patient is "recovering well."
The device is named Telepathy and the company said on its website the goal is to "create a generalized brain interface to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs today and unlock human potential tomorrow."
"The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well," Musk posted on X, the social media platform that he owns. "Initial results show promising neuron spike detection."
In another post on X, Musk wrote the device "enables control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking. Initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs. Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal."
Details of the patient were not given, but the Daily Mail reported that Ashlee Vance, who wrote a 2015 biography, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," wrote for Bloomberg the ideal candidate for Neuralink's first human trial was "an adult under age 40 whose four limbs are paralyzed."
Neuralink began recruiting patients for its first human clinical trial in September after it received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May, according to a company blog post.
The blog post states, "The PRIME Study [short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface] is a groundbreaking investigational medical device trial for our fully implantable, wireless brain-computer interface [BCI] and aims to evaluate the safety of our implant and surgical robot and assess the initial functionality of our BCI for enabling people with paralysis to control external devices with their thoughts."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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