Written in SCIENCE he
Neuralinkthe neurotechnology company of Elon Muskhas just received the green light to start making human studieswhose ultimate goal is to help people with injuries cerebral or paralysis. It was yesterday when Neuralink received the authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDAfor its acronym in English) to begin testing implants brain in humansnews that they announced in a statement published on their account Twitterin which they celebrated the decision.
“We are pleased to announce that we have received FDA approval to launch our first human clinical study! This is the result of incredible work done 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.”can be read in the company statement.
A big step for Neuralink testing in human brains
Neuralink seeks to achieve that human brains can communicate directly with a computer through brain implants, which are chips the size of a coin, and thus be able to recover lost vision or mobility caused by some brain injury.
“As miraculous as it may seem, we are confident that it is possible to restore full-body functionality to a person with a severed spinal cord.”
Elon Musk
At first the FDA had expressed concern about the possibility that these implants could overheat (since they are made up of microwires in the tissue cerebral), causing a leak of chemical elements that affects the brain mass. Thus, several years of debate and negotiations passed until finally Neuralink got approval.
While the company of Musk obtained the authorization, he was working in those years in essays in animalsof the best known were two tests carried out between 2017 and 2020 by the University of California, and of which there is a video where some monkeys are seen “playing” basic video games where they could move the screen cursor with the chip installed in their brains.
However, these studies They were highly criticized by animal rights defenders, who pointed out that the videos showed that the monkeys were missing fingers and toes, which were surely the result of some trauma from the experiments, as well as possible murders and even perforations in their skulls.
“Almost all of the monkeys that were placed implants in the head suffered quite debilitating health effects. They were, frankly, mutilating and killing the animals,” said Jeremy Beckham, director of research advocacy for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
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