Elon Musk said Monday that his company Neuralink has conducted its first brain implant in a human patient.
“The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well,” Musk said in a post on X, his social network. “Initial results show promising neuron spike detection.”
Neuralink has been working for years on a brain-computer interface through wireless brain implants. In theory, they could be used to improve cognitive performance and aid people who suffer from loss of vision, motor functions or are paralyzed.
In a follow-up tweet, Musk said Neuralink’s first product is called Telepathy, and it “enables control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking. Initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs. Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal,” Musk said.
Neuralink did not immediately respond to a request for comment or additional details.
In 2022, Reuters reported federal regulators were investigating Neuralink over allegations that its experiments were causing undue suffering and deaths of its animal test subjects.
In May 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a clinical study for Neuralink’s first in-human brain-implant, and in September, Neuralink started recruiting patients with quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
“During the study, the R1 Robot will be used to surgically place the N1 Implant’s ultra-fine and flexible threads in a region of the brain that controls movement intention,” Neuralink said in a blog post. “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.”