Neuralink: Can Musk's brain technology change the world? - BBC News

The world's richest man is betting heavily on his brain chip, but he has ground to make up.

1 day agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Jim Reed and Joe McFaddenHealth reporters Elon Musk is no stranger to bold claims - from his plans to colonise Mars to his dreams of building transport links underneath our biggest cities. This week the world's richest man said his Neuralink division had successfully implanted its first wireless brain chip into a human.

Is he right when he says this technology could - in the long term - save the human race itself?

Sticking electrodes into brain tissue is really nothing new.

In the 1960s and 70s electrical stimulation was used to trigger or suppress aggressive behaviour in cats. By the early 2000s monkeys were being trained to move a cursor around a computer screen using just their thoughts.

"It's nothing novel, but implantable technology takes a long time to mature, and reach a stage where companies have all the pieces of the puzzle, and can really start to put them together," says Anne Vanhoestenberghe, professor of active implantable medical devices, at King's College London.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68169082?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

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