In 2020, the first tests of the Neuralink chip were introduced to a sow named Gertrude.
In 2021 Neuralink published two videos with tests on monkeys using their chip.
Elon Musk announced on Wednesday, November 30, that he expects the wireless brain chip developed by his company Neuralink to begin human clinical trials in six months.
Musk’s company, based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Austin, Texas, has been conducting animal tests in recent years as it seeks approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials in people.
“We want to be extremely careful and make sure that it will work well before we put a device in a human being,” Musk said during an online conference.
Notably, the first two human applications targeted by the Neuralink device will be to restore vision and enable movement of muscles in people who are unable to do so, Musk said. “Even if someone has never had vision, never, like they were born blind, we believe we can still restore vision,” he said.
Neuralink chip advances
The last of the advances shown by the chip company were shown on April 8, 2021 where Neuralink played a monkey playing a video game called MindPong, very similar to the legendary Atari console game, Pong.
Also during the event, Musk was asked if Neuralink would plan to make its tools available to neuroscientists. He replied that the company would do it after it had reached the production phase.
Before Neuralink’s brain implants are mass-produced and reach the general market, they will need regulatory approval from the FDA. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a document in May of last year outlining the agency’s initial thoughts on brain-computer interface devices, noting that the field it is “progressing rapidly”.
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