ELON Musk’s neurotechnology company has received FDA approval to launch its first-in-human clinical study, it was announced today.
Neuralink was founded by the Tesla CEO in 2016 focusing on developing a brain-computer interface called “the link.”
Musk said the company’s goal is to develop a surgically embedded neural-chip implant to help disabled patients move and communicate again and possibly restore vision.
“This is the result of incredible work by the Neuralink team in close collaboration with the FDA and represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people,” Neuralink tweeted.
“Recruitment is not yet open for our clinical trial. We’ll announce more information on this soon!”
Musk retweeted the announcement hours later with his congrats.
“Congratulations Neuralink team!” he wrote.
The Neuralink technology was previously tested on monkeys while waiting for FDA approval, shocking the world after tests showed one of the animals playing video game pong with its thoughts.
In a speech at the company headquarters back in December, Musk said: “We want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work before putting a device into a human.”
“The progress at first, particularly as it applies to humans, will seem perhaps agonizingly slow, but we are doing all of the things to bring it to scale in parallel.”
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The company based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Austin, Texas, has faced scrutiny from campaigners who filed a lawsuit last year, claiming it had evidence macaques used in previous trials were subjected to horrific suffering.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed the documents with the US Department of Agriculture in 2022.
They claimed the animals were subject to “extreme suffering” – with one monkey having holes drilled in its skull.
Neuralink’s brain chips were implanted in the monkeys’ heads to see if they could control technology with their thoughts.
However, the experiment allegedly left 15 out of 23 monkeys dead.
In one instance, a monkey was found missing some fingers and toes, possibly caused by self-mutilation, legal papers claim.
Another case revealed a female macaque monkey had electrodes implanted into its brain, which caused it to be overcome with vomiting, retching, and gasping.
Neuralink conducted its monkey experiments in partnership with scientists at the University of California, Davis.
A legal battle is being pursued for the Californian university to release a cache of 371 grisly photographs of the monkeys reportedly killed or injured in the experiments.
Ryan Merkley, of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine advocacy group, said the public needs to be made aware of the monkeys’ suffering.
He said: “UC Davis thinks the public is too stupid to know what they’re looking at.
“But it’s clear the university is simply trying to hide from taxpayers the fact that it partnered with Elon Musk to conduct experiments in which animals suffered and died.
“These photos are public records created with public funds, and the public deserves access to the research they paid for.”
In a statement released in February, Neuralink defended its testing measures – but admitted several animals were euthanized.
It blamed animals losing their fingers as a result of fighting with other monkeys, rather than self-mutilation.
“It is important to note that these accusations come from people who oppose any use of animals in research,” said Neuralink.
“Currently, all novel medical devices and treatments must be tested in animals before they can be ethically trialed in humans.
“Neuralink is not unique in this regard.”
