First Human Receives Neuralink Brain Implant: Musk

Elon Musk announced on X Monday that a brain chip from his Neuralink company has been implanted in a human patient for the first time, and that the patient was "recovering well" after the Sunday procedure. He said the first product from the neurotech startup is called Telepathy, and it aims to allow people to use their phones or computers ("and through them almost any device") simply by thinking. Its first users will be people without the use of their limbs, he wrote: "Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal." Coverage of Musk's announcement:

• Short on details: While Musk didn't share much about the patient's progress, he posted that "initial results show promising neuron spike detection." At the Wall Street Journal, Rolfe Winkler writes that the note suggests "that the Neuralink device is detecting signals from individual neurons inside the brain, a potential advance that could decode higher-quality brain signals."

• The study: NBC News reports Neuralink started recruiting in the fall for its first clinical trials on humans, after the FDA approved the study in May. At the time, the company said it was looking for a person with quadriplegia. (Musk had been trying to get approval since 2019, but had to work through some safety concerns first, Fox Business reports.) There are still many steps to go, including what NBC calls "several rounds of intense data safety collection and testing," before the FDA could grant final approval.
• More details: Neuralink says the six-year study that was approved in May will involve "64 flexible threads, thinner than a human hair," to be placed by a robot on the part of the brain that controls "movement intention," the BBC reports. The threads allow Neuralink's battery-powered implant (the battery can be charged wirelessly) to "record and transmit brain signals wirelessly to an app that decodes how the person intends to move," per the BBC.
• Not the first: Though, as NBC notes, Neuralink might be the best-known company in the brain-computer interface (BCI) industry thanks to Musk, companies like Synchron, Precision Neuroscience, Paradromics, and Blackrock Neurotec are working on similar products, with some already having started human trials. Blackrock Neurotec, for example, has a long history: It first implanted a BCI in 2004.

(More Neuralink stories.)