Neuralink

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• Academic and commercial groups are testing “brain-computer interface” devices to enable people with disabilities to function more independently.
• In January 2024, Musk announced that Neuralink implanted its first chip in a human subject’s brain.

How does a brain chip work?

• Subjects in the company’s PRIME study – short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface – undergo surgery to place the device in a part of the brain that controls movement.
• The chip records and processes the brain’s electrical activity, then transmits this data to an external device, such as a phone or computer.

A few companies are testing BCIs. What’s different about Neuralink?

Noninvasive devices positioned on the outside of a person’s head have been used in clinical trials for a long time, but they have not received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for commercial development.
There are other brain-computer devices, like Neuralink’s, that are fully implanted and wireless. However, the N1 implant combines more technologies in a single device: It can target individual neurons, record from thousands of sites in the brain and recharge its small battery wirelessly. These are important advances that could produce better outcomes.

Why is Neuralink drawing criticism?

• Musk announced the company’s first human trial on his social media platform, X – formerly Twitter – in January 2024.
• Neuralink did not register at ClinicalTrials.gov, as is customary, and required by some academic journals.
• Neuralink, on the other hand, embodies a private equity model, which is becoming more common in science.

• However, the secretary did note an “adverse surgical event” in 2019 that Neuralink had self-reported.
• In a separate incident also reported by Reuters, the Department of Transportation fined Neuralink for violating rules about transporting hazardous materials, including a flammable liquid.

What other ethical issues does Neuralink’s trial raise?

• In particular, it helps people recover a sense of their own agency or autonomy – one of the key tenets of medical ethics.
• With BCIs, scientists and ethicists are particularly concerned about the potential for identity theft, password hacking and blackmail.
• Given how the devices access users’ thoughts, there is also the possibility that their autonomy could be manipulated by third parties.

What’s next?

• Musk has said his ultimate goal for BCIs, however, is to help humanity – including healthy people – “keep pace” with artificial intelligence.
• Some types of supercharged brain-computer synthesis could exacerbate social inequalities if only wealthy citizens have access to enhancements.
• For patients whose access to a device is tied to a research study, the prospect of losing access after the study ends can be devastating.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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• A national medical ethics group is urging the Alameda City Council to reject a proposed lease for a medical device company whose CEO recently oversaw debilitating, deadly experiments on monkeys.
• The company, Science Corp., has applied to occupy Building 11 at Alameda Point, public property owned by the city, where it plans to conduct experiments on primates, rabbits, and mice.
• Its CEO, Max Hodak, was the co-founder and, until May 2021, president of the brain-computer interface company Neuralink.
• Hodak started Neuralink with Elon Musk, and the company’s experiments on monkeys at the University of California, Davis, from 2017 to 2020 caused public outcry when they were revealed last year by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.