Elon Musk's Neuralink gets OK for human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients

Elon Musk's brain chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday (September 19) that it would start the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients. In a statement, Neuralink said it received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the trial.

Musk has grand ambitions for the startup, having said it would facilitate speedy surgical insertions of its chip devices to treat conditions like obesity and autism.

Neuralink said those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis might qualify for the study.

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The trial will take about six years to complete but it is not yet known how many participants would be enrolled.

"The PRIME Study (short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface) – a groundbreaking investigational medical device trial for our fully-implantable, wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) – aims to evaluate the safety of our implant (N1) and surgical robot (R1) and assess the initial functionality of our BCI for enabling people with paralysis to control external devices with their thoughts," the statement said.

The study would use a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface (BCI) implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, it said.

The initial goal here is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.

"Once in place, the N1 Implant is cosmetically invisible and is intended to record and transmit brain signals wirelessly to an app that decodes movement intention," the statement added.

Experts have pointed out that even if the BCI device proves to be safe for human use, it would still probably take over a decade for Neuralink to secure commercial use clearance for it.

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