Neuralink announced its intention to replicate its recent experience on 3 new volunteers with quadriplegia, by implanting brain chips that help them carry out some tasks.
Through the new experiment, researchers seek to change how people with paralysis interact with digital tools and devices through “telepathy,” and this was detailed in the database of clinical trials in the United States.
The first phase of the “Initial Feasibility Study for an Automated Implantable Brain-Computer Interface to Control External Devices” project prepared by Neuralink is scheduled to be completed by 2026, with the final phase to be completed by 2031.
The company had previously announced its intention to search for people between the ages of 22 and 75 who suffer from severe quadriplegia, whether due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or an illness affecting the spinal cord, provided that there are no signs of improvement in their medical condition for at least a year.
People who have lost the ability to move their hands or arms are the most likely to participate in the experiment, and the study specifically excludes healthy people, obese people, or people who have active electronic implants.
Criticisms and questions
The company announced early this year that it had performed the first operation to implant a chip in the brain of a patient, and it was not long before the chip showed its promising capabilities with a video clip shown in March of the patient playing on the computer by telepathy alone.
Knowing that the company later performed another operation that included removing some of the “neural sensor” threads in the chip and reducing the electrodes in the patient’s brain, for the purpose of improving performance in line with doctors’ expectations.
Neuralink was also widely criticized by several parties for concealing some details. Although the US Food and Drug Administration – the country’s highest authority for passing such experiments – approved the clinical study at the end of 2023, it has not expressed any reaction to the course of the experiment until now.
It appears that the company has already begun to move towards greater transparency and sharing some details that were keeping it away from the public and the media.
It is considered a pioneering project in the technical and medical field led by Dr. Francisco Ponce. One of the landmarks of the modern era, which the company hopes will revolutionize the treatment of severe neurological disorders, break the isolation of people with paralysis from the outside world, and enable them to rely on themselves in some pivotal details.