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Neuralink

American neurotechnology company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Neuralink

Neuralink Corp.[4] is an American neurotechnology company that has developed, as of 2024, implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). It was founded by Elon Musk and a team of eight scientists and engineers.[4][5][6][7] Neuralink was launched in 2016 and first publicly reported in March 2017.[8][9][10][11]

Quick Facts Company type, Industry ...
Neuralink Corp.
Company typePrivate
IndustryNeurotechnology
FoundedJune 21, 2016; 8 years ago (2016-06-21)
FounderElon Musk
HeadquartersFremont, California, United States[1]
Key people
Jared Birchall (CEO)[2]
Products
OwnerElon Musk
Number of employees
c. 300[3] (2022)
Websiteneuralink.com
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In January 2017, Musk proxies approached Pedram Mohseni and Randolph Nudo, who owned the rights to the name "NeuraLink" and the prototype that Musk's company based its work on. These two neuroscientists strove to create an electronic chip to treat traumatic brain injury. They made significant progress and completed preliminary testing but had not received enough support from investors to continue. "The pair of longtime neurotech researchers had developed a device that might help people with brain injuries. But their initial contacts with investors hadn't advanced very far when a stranger approached them offering tens of thousands of dollars for their company's name and prototype. They accepted. No one mentioned that Musk...was behind it."[12]

The company is based in Fremont, California, with plans to build a three-story building with office and manufacturing space near Austin, Texas, in Del Valle, about 10 miles east of Gigafactory Texas, Tesla's headquarters and manufacturing plant that opened in 2022.[5]

Since its founding, the company has hired several high-profile neuroscientists from various universities.[13] By 2019, it had received $158 million in funding ($100 million was from Musk) and had 90 employees.[14] At that time, Neuralink announced that it was working on a "sewing machine-like" device capable of implanting very thin (4 to 6 μm in width)[15] threads into the brain, and demonstrated a system that reads information from a lab rat via 1,500 electrodes. It anticipated starting experiments with humans in 2020,[14] but later moved that to 2023. As of May 2023, it has been approved for human trials in the United States.[6] On January 29, 2024, Musk announced that Neuralink had successfully implanted a Neuralink device in a human and that the patient was recovering.[16]

The company has faced criticism for the large number of primates that were euthanized after medical trials. Veterinary records of the monkeys showed complications with surgically implanted electrodes.[17]

In September 2024, the company announced that its latest development effort, Blindsight, would enable blind people whose visual cortex is undamaged to regain some level of vision. The development received "breakthrough" status from the U.S. federal government, which will accelerate development.[18]

Company

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History

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The Pioneer Building in San Francisco, formerly housing the offices of Neuralink and OpenAI

Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Elon Musk and a founding team of eight scientists and engineers: Max Hodak, Benjamin Rapoport, Dongjin Seo, Paul Merolla, Philip Sabes, Tim Gardner, Tim Hanson, and Vanessa Tolosa.[4][5][6][9][7][19][20] The initial hires included experts in neuroscience, biochemistry, and robotics.[10] The trademark "Neuralink" was purchased from its previous owners in January 2017.[9][21]

In April 2017, Neuralink announced that it was aiming in the short term to make devices to treat serious brain diseases, with the eventual goal of human enhancement, sometimes called transhumanism.[22][10][23] Musk said his interest in the idea partly stemmed from the concept of "neural lace" in the fictional universe in The Culture, a series of 10 novels by Iain M. Banks.[23][24]

Musk defined the neural lace as a "digital layer above the cortex" that would not necessarily require extensive surgical insertion but could be implanted through a vein or artery.[25] He said the long-term goal is to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence",[26] which he perceives as an existential threat to humanity if unchecked.[26][27] He believes the device will be "something analogous to a video game, like a saved game situation, where you are able to resume and upload your last state" and "address brain injuries or spinal injuries and make up for whatever lost capacity somebody has with a chip."[28]

Jared Birchall, the head of Musk's family office, was listed as Neuralink's CEO, CFO, and president in 2018.[29][30] As of September 2018, Musk was its majority owner but did not hold an executive position.[31] Co-founder Benjamin Rapoport cited safety concerns as a major influence on his decision to leave Neuralink in 2018.[32] Rapoport subsequently founded Precision Neuroscience, emphasizing the use of surface electrodes as opposed to the penetrating electrodes of Neuralink, in order to address brain damage and other safety concerns caused by Neuralink's devices.[33]

By August 2020, only three of the eight founding scientists remained at the company, according to an article by Stat News. It reported that Neuralink had seen "years of internal conflict in which rushed timelines have clashed with the slow and incremental pace of science".[34] As of 2020, Neuralink was headquartered in San Francisco's Mission District, sharing the Pioneer building with OpenAI, another company Musk co-founded.[30][35] As of 2022, Neuralink's headquarters were in Fremont, California.[1]

In April 2021, Neuralink demonstrated a monkey playing the game "Pong" using a Neuralink implant.[36] Similar technology had existed since 2002, when a research group demonstrated a monkey moving a computer cursor with neural signals, but scientists acknowledged that making the implant wireless and increasing the number of implanted electrodes represented engineering progress.[37][38][39]

In May 2021, co-founder and president Max Hodak announced that he no longer worked with the company.[7] Only two of the eight co-founders remained at the company as of January 2022.[40]

On February 8, 2024, Musk changed the location of Neuralink's business incorporation from Delaware to Nevada[41] after Delaware Chancery Court Chief Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick voided Musk's $55 billion pay package at Tesla.[42]

Technology

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In 2018, Gizmodo reported that Neuralink "remained highly secretive about its work". Public records showed that it had sought to open an animal testing facility in San Francisco, but it subsequently began doing research at the University of California, Davis.[30] In 2019, during a live presentation at the California Academy of Sciences, the Neuralink team revealed the technology of the first prototype it had been working on. It is a system that involves ultra-thin probes inserted into the brain, a neurosurgical robot to perform the operations, and a high-density electronic system capable of processing information from neurons. It is based on technology developed at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley.[43]

Probes

The probes, made mostly of polyimide, a biocompatible material, with a thin gold or platinum conductor, are inserted into the brain through an automated process performed by a surgical robot. Each probe consists of an area of wires that contains electrodes capable of locating electrical signals in the brain and a sensory area where the wire interacts with an electronic system that allows amplification and acquisition of the brain signal. Each probe contains 48 or 96 wires, each of which contains 32 independent electrodes, making a system of up to 3,072 electrodes per formation.[15][44]

Robot

Neuralink says it has engineered a surgical robot capable of rapidly inserting many flexible probes into the brain, which may avoid the tissue damage and longevity problems associated with larger, more rigid probes.[45][46][47] This surgical robot has an insertion head with a 25 μm diameter needle made of tungsten-rhenium designed to attach to the insertion loops, inject individual probes, and penetrate the meninges and cerebral tissue; it can insert up to six wires (192 electrodes) per minute.[45] A linear motor powers the needle, enabling fast retraction acceleration and varying insertion speeds. A 50-μm tungsten wire that has been bent at the tip and is driven both axially and rotationally makes up the pincher. An imaging stack is also included in the inserter head for needle guidance, real-time insertion viewing, and verification.[45][48][49]

Electronics

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Elon Musk discussing the Neuralink

Neuralink has developed an application-specific integrated circuit to create a 1,536-channel recording system. This system consists of 256 amplifiers that can be individually programmed, analog-to-digital converters within the chip, and peripheral circuit control to serialize the digitized information obtained.[45][50] It aims to convert information obtained from neurons into an understandable binary code in order to achieve greater understanding of brain function and the ability to stimulate these neurons back. So far, Neuralink's electrodes are too big to record the firing of individual neurons; they can record only the firing of a group of neurons. Neuralink representatives believe this issue may be mitigated algorithmically, but it is computationally expensive and does not produce exact results.[51]

In July 2020, according to Musk, Neuralink obtained a FDA breakthrough device designation which allows limited human testing under the FDA guidelines for medical devices.[52][53]

Public compression challenge

On May 29, 2024, Musk issued a request for public input on a challenge facing Neuralink. He suggested that due to the size of the data in need of transmission, a compression rate of more than 200x was needed. The challenge specified that compression needed to be lossless, work under low power, and compress data in real time. Software consultant Roy van Rijn called the prospect of 200x lossless compression "just outlandish."[54][55]

Animal testing and alleged harm

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Neuralink tests its devices by surgically implanting them in the brains of live monkeys, pigs, and other animals.[56] This has been criticized by groups such as PETA.[57]

In August 2020, Neuralink conducted a live demo in which the brain activity of a pig, Gertrude, was displayed in real time.[58][59] A removable[60][61] device the size of a coin (23 millimeters)[62][63] implanted in Gertrude's brain recorded signals from the neurons connected to her snout as she interacted with her environment, such as when she sniffed or touched things.[64][65] The data showed that the technology could read and interpret brain signals, which is key to developing applications that could treat neurological conditions, enable brain-to-machine communication, or enhance human cognition.[66][67][68][69][70]

The demonstration included two other pigs. The Neuralink chip implanted in one of the pigs was removed to demonstrate that it could be done safely without damaging the pig's health.[71][72] The third pig, which did not have an implanted chip,[73][74] served as a comparison to show the similarity in health and behavior of the implanted and non-implanted pigs.[75][76]

From 2017 to 2020, Neuralink's experiments on monkeys were conducted in partnership with University of California, Davis. At the end of the partnership, UC Davis transferred seven monkeys to Neuralink. In 2022, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), an animal welfare advocacy group, alleged that Neuralink and UC Davis had mistreated several monkeys, subjecting them to psychological distress, extreme suffering, and chronic infections due to surgeries.[77] Experiments conducted by Neuralink and UC Davis have involved at least 23 monkeys, and the PCRM believes that 15 of those died or were euthanized as a result of the experiments. The PCRM also alleged that UC Davis withheld photographic and video evidence of the mistreatment.[78]

In February 2022, Neuralink said that macaque monkeys were euthanized after experimentation and denied that any animal abuse had occurred.[79][80] In December 2022, it was reported that Neuralink was under federal investigation by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for animal welfare violations. Additionally, a Reuters report cited claims by several Neuralink employees that testing was rushed due to Musk's demands for fast results and that was causing needless animal suffering and deaths.[80][81] A September 2023 exposé by Wired provided details on the primate deaths based on public records and confidential interviews with a former Neuralink employee and a researcher at the California National Primate Research Center.[17][82] Those records showed complications with the installation of electrodes, including partial paralysis, bloody diarrhea, and brain swelling.[17]

In 2022,[further explanation needed] after being rejected for human clinical trials by the FDA, Neuralink performed more tests on pigs to address safety concerns. Some of these pigs were observed to have developed granulomas (inflammatory tissues) in their brains. Neuralink could not determine the cause of the granulomas, but claimed that the implant and its associated threads were not the cause.[83]

In July 2023, an investigation by the United States Department of Agriculture found no evidence of animal welfare breaches in the trials other than a self-reported incident from 2019.[84] The PCRM disputed the investigation's result.[85]

In October 2023, Wired reported that Neuralink worked to keep details of animal suffering and death hidden from the public.[86] In November 2023, U.S. lawmakers asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Neuralink deceived investors by omitting details about possible animal deaths.[87][88]

On March 21, 2024, Musk said that Neuralink's second product, Blindsight, was working in trials with monkeys. He said it operates at a low resolution that is expected to improve and that no monkey had died or been seriously injured due to a Neuralink device, contradicting earlier reports.[89]

The New York Times reported that the Department of Agriculture was conducting an investigation into the alleged mistreatment of dozens of test monkeys and that in December 2024, Musk had posted a letter on X in which his lawyer informed him that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had reopened a separate investigation related to the alleged abuses. In January 2025, during the first week of his second term in office, President Donald Trump fired 17 inspectors general, including Phyllis Fong, who was responsible for the Agriculture Department's investigation.[90]

Both investigations were instigated by the nonprofit PCRM. In a December 2024 news release, PCRM wrote, "documents from the University of California, Davis, where Neuralink conducted monkey experiments from 2017 to 2020, reveal that implantation of the company's device caused debilitating health effects in monkeys, resulting in euthanasia. Animals experienced chronic infections, paralysis, swelling in the brain, loss of coordination and balance, and depression".[91]

With recent changes in the SEC's leadership, the fate of these investigations is not clear. Musk has denied the allegations of abuse.[92]

Human testing

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The FDA rejected Neurolink's 2022 application to pursue human clinical trials, citing "major safety concerns involving the device's lithium battery; the potential for the implant's tiny wires to migrate to other areas of the brain; and questions over whether and how the device can be removed without damaging brain tissue",[93] but then approved it in May 2023.[94]

In September 2023, Neuralink began its first human trials under an investigational device exemption from the FDA.[95][96] The trials recruited people with quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.[97]

On January 29, 2024, Musk said that Neuralink had successfully implanted Telepathy, a brain computer interface (BCI) device, in a human on the previous day and that the patient was recovering from the surgery.[16] As it was a "first in human" and "early feasibility" trial to develop a concept, the company was not obligated to disclose details about the procedure or to prove safety or efficacy.[98] Neuralink provided a few details in February on the implant in a recruitment brochure for the Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface (PRIME) study.[99] On February 20, Musk said that Neuralink's first human trial participant had been able to control a computer mouse by thought.[100][101]

On March 20, 2024, through a livestream on X, Neuralink introduced the person who had received the first Neuralink implant in the clinical trial, 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh. Arbaugh had become a quadriplegic after a diving accident dislocated his C4 and C5 spinal vertebrae. Noland demonstrated his ability to move a cursor on a computer screen to allow him to control music and play games such as chess. He expressed support for the implant in improving his quality of life.[102] He acknowledged that the device was not perfect but said he was excited about the future.[103] In a subsequent interview, Arbaugh said that 85% of the device's implant threads had completely detached, as his brain had shifted approximately three times as much as Neuralink had expected.[104]

The Wall Street Journal reported that Neuralink would proceed with a second trial participant.[104] The FDA had signed off on the company's proposed fixes for a problem that occurred with Arbaugh.[105] In August 2024, a chip was reportedly successfully implanted in the second participant, pseudonym "Alex".[106]

Alex was reportedly able to create 3D designs by using the CAD software Fusion 360 and a custom mount for his Neuralink charger because of the implant.[107] Additional accounts show that he has been able to play first-person shooter games at a higher level than previously.[108] Unlike Arbaugh's implantation procedure, Alex's reduced brain motion and placed the implant closer to the brain's surface in an attempt to mitigate thread retraction. Since the initial operation, Alex has reportedly not experienced any thread retraction.[108] Alex said, "The Link is a big step on the path of regaining freedom and independence for myself."

In November 2024, Neuralink received approval from Health Canada for its first clinical trial in that country.[109] The trial, called CAN-PRIME,[110] was to be led by Andres M. Lozano.[111]

Reception

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Scientists have cited technical challenges for Neuralink. In 2017, a journalist at the IEEE Spectrum magazine asked for comments from five researchers who had worked on BCI implants, including Thomas Oxley. Oxley called the Neuralink developments "exciting" but expected no real results in the foreseeable future.[further explanation needed][112] At a live demonstration in August 2020, Musk described the device as "a Fitbit in your skull". Several neuroscientists and publications criticized these claims.[113][114][115] MIT Technology Review reported that the demonstration's main objective was to "stir excitement", adding, "Neuralink has provided no evidence that it can (or has even tried to) treat depression, insomnia, or a dozen other diseases that Musk mentioned in a slide".[113] In response to Musk's description of Neuralink's advancements as "profound", Andrew Jackson, a professor of neural interfaces at Newcastle University, said, "I don't think there was anything revolutionary in the presentation."[116]

Thiago Arzua of the Medical College of Wisconsin argued that Neuralink's functions were not novel and that ideas for a brain–machine interface (BMI) were at least 50 years old.[117] He cited the haptic feedback a man received while controlling a robotic prosthetic arm which he used in 2016 to give President Obama a fist bump.[118] Arzua said that the 2020 Neuralink presentation "showed little more than a flashy new design for a BMI with more electrodes".[117] Duke University researcher Miguel Nicolelis made similar criticisms, saying that most of what Neuralink claims as "novelty" had already been performed by his lab in the early 2000s; that there are ethical concerns about how the company markets and uses this technology; and that most patients don't want to undergo surgery to recover their movements. His team therefore developed non-invasive techniques for BMI, as demonstrated in the opening ceremony of the 2014 FIFA World Cup as part of the Walk Again Project.[119][120][121][122]

See also

References

Further reading

External links

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