Having received approval from the Canadian regulators, Neuralink announced it was seeking patients with Quadriplegia due to ALS or spinal injury.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s brain-chip start-up Neuralink has been making headway since a wireless chip was cleared to be implanted into a human earlier this year. University Health Network’s (UHN) Toronto Western Hospital, Canada has become the first non-US site to conduct clinical trials on humans for this chip. The company, founded in 2016, has been seeking participants for its trial run since 2023. In January 2024, Musk reported that the chip was successfully surgically implanted into a patient who was recovering and responding well.
UHN Chief Executive Officer Kevin Smith said that they are elated to be at the forefront of the research advancements being made in neurosurgery. Having received approval from the Canadian regulators, Neuralink announced it was seeking patients with Quadriplegia due to ALS or spinal injury.
The company’s products aim to allow patients to control their electronic devices such as mobile phones and computers, through their thoughts. They had also actively sought patients across the US, UK, and Canada to participate in these clinical trials. Australian company Synchron Inc., which is involved in similar research was also looking to recruit patients for its trials. Neuralink is also working on treating conditions such as blindness, but the progress for that is still further down the road.
Musk revealed in January that the first patient to receive the chip implant had been responding positively to the surgery and that the results showed promising neuron spike detection. He said that Neuralink’s first product was called Telepathy. Although no further details were provided, the National Institute of Health explained that spikes are neuron activity which indicates the use of electrical and chemical signals by cells to send information to the brain and other parts of the body.
Musk spoke positively about the future of Telepathy wherein he said it would be possible to control electric devices with just one’s thoughts and the primary target audience for such products would be those individuals who have lost their limbs. Along with restoring motor functionality, the device would allow for brain-computer interfacing (BCI).
According to Musk, BCI works on a model where once the chip is surgically implanted, it would register brain activity and send it over to an electric device such as a phone through a bluetooth connection. Neuralink has claimed that inserting the chip would also allow people to overcome neurological disorders.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared Neuralink products for human trials in May 2023. The human testing phase was meant to assess the safety and efficacy of the products while simultaneously making improvements and adjustments to suit human requirements.
The initial trials of these chips were conducted on monkeys and pigs. Neuralink revealed that the monkeys with brain chips were moving cursors and playing video games with the help of these implants. However, the trials were not without issues. Although there were no fatal accidents, it was reported that some monkeys showed signs of brain swelling, paralysis, and seizures. Nonetheless, these incidents had no negative effect on the company, as, once the FDA approved human trials for the brain chips, Neuralink stocks rose to US $5 billion in June 2024.
While Musk is confident that Neuralink is paving the way for the future of medicine and technology, several ethical concerns have been flagged. Firstly, the risks associated with brain surgery such as seizures and haemorrhage are ringing alarm bells. This is closely followed by Musk’s vision of the way these brain chips will be used. Experts are concerned with privacy and surveillance, as very limited information has been released regarding the user’s ability to retain control of their data and neural activity.
Regardless of these concerns, Musk’s Neuralink is one of many companies working on research that would enable brain-computing interfacing in the future. Its impact on medicine and society can only be studied once such a product has been cleared of all potential risks and launched in the market.