FILE-Elon Musk, billionaire and chief executive officer of Tesla, attends the Viva Tech fair in Paris, France, on Friday, June 16, 2023. (Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
A third patient received a brain implant from Neuralink, a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk.
The billionaire said, "We’ve got ... three humans with Neuralinks and all are working well," during a wide-ranging interview at a Las Vegas event streamed on his social media platform X.
Musk didn’t offer details about the third implant but explained that Neuralink wants to implant the experimental devices in 20 to 30 more people in 2025. He also said that the company has upgraded the devices
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Who were the recipients of the other brain implants?
The backstory:
In 2024, the first patient to receive the brain implant is paralyzed after a spinal cord injury and described how it helped him play video games and chess.
The second recipient also has a spinal cord injury and got the implant last summer and was playing video games with the help of the device and learning how to use computer-aided design software to create 3-D objects, the Associated Press reported.
Neuralink, based in Fremont, California, is among the many groups working on linking the nervous system to computers to help treat brain disorders, overcome brain injuries, and for other applications.
In February 2024, Musk updated on the first human patient with one of the company’s implants, stating during a Space event on X that the patient can control a computer mouse with their thoughts: "Progress is good, and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware of. Patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking," Musk said.
Later that year, Neuralink received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to proceed with human trials for brain implants. Last fall, the company announced it was seeking volunteers, ideally quadriplegic adults under age 40.
How is brain-computer interface technology evaluated and regulated?
Why you should care:
The Associated Press reported that Neuralink announced in 2023 that it received permission from U.S. regulators to begin testing its device in people.
Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies high-risk devices, tells the AP that while most medical devices go on the market without clinical studies, high-risk ones that undergo pre-market approval need what’s called an "investigational device exemption" from the Food and Drug Administration.
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According to the AP, Neuralink says it has this exemption, but the FDA noted that it can’t confirm or disclose information about a particular study.
Are there benefits to brain-computer interface?
What they're saying:
Marco Baptista, chief scientific officer of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, called brain-computer interface technology "very exciting" with potential benefits to people with paralysis.
Baptista tells the AP that through clinical trials, "we’ll be able to see what’s going to be the winning approach," he said. "It’s a little early to know."
"We need to really support high-risk, high-reward endeavors. This is clearly high-risk, high-reward. We don’t know how safe it’s going to be. We don’t know how feasible it’s going to be," he concluded.