Neuralink facts for kids
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| Private | |
| Industry | Brain–computer interface Neuroprosthetics |
| Founded | June 21, 2016 |
| Headquarters | Fremont, California, U.S. |
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Key people
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Jared Birchall (CEO) |
| Owner | Elon Musk |
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Number of employees
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c. 300 (2022) |
Neuralink Corp. is an American neurotechnology company that is developing implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), based in Fremont, California, as of 2022. Founded by Elon Musk and a team of seven scientists and engineers, Neuralink was launched in 2016 and was first publicly reported in March 2017.
Since its founding, the company has hired several high-profile neuroscientists from various universities. By July 2019, it had received $158 million in funding (of which $100 million was from Musk) and was employing a staff of 90 employees. 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) threads into the brain, and demonstrated a system that reads information from a lab rat via 1,500 electrodes. They had anticipated starting experiments with humans in 2020, but have since moved that projection to 2023. As of May 2023, they have been approved for human trials in the United States.
Company
History
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Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Elon Musk and a founding team of seven scientists and engineers. The group of initial hires consisted of experts in areas such as neuroscience, biochemistry and robotics. The trademark "Neuralink" was purchased from its previous owners in January 2017.
In April 2017, Neuralink announced that it was aiming to make devices to treat serious brain diseases in the short-term, with the eventual goal of human enhancement, sometimes called transhumanism. Musk had said his interest in the idea partly stemmed from the science fiction concept of "neural lace" in the fictional universe in The Culture, a series of 10 novels by Iain M. Banks.
Musk defined the neural lace as a "digital layer above the cortex" that would not necessarily imply extensive surgical insertion but ideally an implant through a vein or artery. He said the long-term goal is to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence", which he perceives as an existential threat to humanity if it goes unchecked. 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."
As of 2020, Neuralink was headquartered in San Francisco's Mission District, sharing the Pioneer building with OpenAI, another company co-founded by Musk. As of 2022, Neuralink's headquarters were in Fremont, California. Jared Birchall, the head of Musk's family office, was listed as CEO, CFO and president of Neuralink in 2018. As of September 2018, Musk was the majority owner of Neuralink but did not hold an executive position. By August 2020, only three of the eight founding scientists remained at the company, according to an article by Stat News which reported that Neuralink had seen "years of internal conflict in which rushed timelines have clashed with the slow and incremental pace of science."
In April 2021, Neuralink demonstrated a monkey playing the game "Pong" using the Neuralink implant. While similar technology has existed since 2002, when a research group first demonstrated a monkey moving a computer cursor with neural signals, scientists acknowledged the engineering progress in making the implant wireless and increasing the number of implanted electrodes. In May 2021, co-founder and president Max Hodak announced that he no longer works with the company. By January 2022, of the eight cofounders, only two remained at the company.
Technology
In 2018, Gizmodo reported that Neuralink "remained highly secretive about its work", although public records showed that it had sought to open an animal testing facility in San Francisco; it subsequently started to carry out research at the University of California, Davis. In 2019, during a live presentation at the California Academy of Sciences, the Neuralink team revealed to the public the technology of the first prototype they had been working on. It is a system that involves ultra-thin probes being 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 UCSF and UC Berkeley.
Probes
The probes, composed 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 3072 electrodes per formation.
Robot
Neuralink says they have engineered a surgical robot capable of rapidly inserting many flexible probes into the brain, which may avoid the problems of tissue damage and longevity issues associated with larger and more rigid probes. This surgical robot has an insertion head with a 40 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 is capable of inserting up to six wires (192 electrodes) per minute.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.
Electronics
Neuralink has developed an application-specific integrated circuit to create a 1,536-channel recording system. This system consists of 256 amplifiers capable of being individually programmed, analog-to-digital converters within the chip and peripheral circuit control to serialize the digitized information obtained. It aims to convert information obtained from neurons into an understandable binary code in order to achieve a greater understanding of brain function and the ability to stimulate these neurons back. With the present technology, Neuralink's electrodes are still too big to record the firing of individual neurons, so they can record only the firing of a group of neurons; Neuralink representatives believe this issue might get mitigated algorithmically, but it is computationally expensive and does not produce exact results.
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.
Animal testing
Neuralink tests their devices by surgically implanting them in the brains of live monkeys, pigs and other animals. Neuralink's methods have been criticized by groups such as PETA. From 2017 to 2020, Neuralink's experiments on monkeys were conducted in partnership with UC Davis.
Human testing
Neuralink received FDA approval for human clinical trials in May 2023. The FDA had previously rejected a 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."
In September 2023, Neuralink opened up its first human trials for recruitment under an investigational device exemption by the FDA.
On January 29, 2024, Musk announced that Neuralink had successfully implanted a Neuralink device in a human, on the day prior. Musk reported that the unknown patient was recovering well from the surgery. Musk also stated that intial results were showing "promising neuron spike detection."
See also
In Spanish: Neuralink para niños
- Brain–computer interface
- Cortical implant
- Electrocorticography
- Kernel (neurotech company)
- Mind uploading
- Neurorobotics
- Surface chemistry of neural implants
- Stentrode
