Human trials for the Neuralink brain implant are about to start

According to a company blog, Elon Musk's biotechnology startup Neuralink began recruiting for its first human clinical trial Tuesday.

Neuralink announced it will give brain implants to paralysis patients in the PRIME Study after an independent review board approved it. PRIME, short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface, tests the implant's safety and performance.

Trial participants will have a chip implanted in the brain's control center for movement. The business wrote that a robot will install the device, which will record and transfer brain impulses to an app to “grant people the ability to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.”

Quadriplegia caused by cervical spinal cord injury or ALS may qualify for the six-year trial, which includes 18 months of at-home and clinic visits and five years of follow-up. Visitors to Neuralink's website can join the patient registry.

Musk has spent five years developing Neuralink's implants to connect the brain to a computer, although the company has only tested on animals. After a monkey died in 2022 project testing to play Pong, one of the first video games, the firm was criticized.

In his latest book about Neuralink's founder, Walter Isaacson said Musk was inspired by science fiction authors like Iain Banks to develop a “human-machine interface technology called ‘neural lace’ that is implanted into people and can connect all of their thoughts to a computer.”

Neuralink tweeted after FDA approval for human clinical trials in May, and the agency confirmed it in a statement. Human trials begin over a month after the brain chip startup secured $280 million from Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based VC firm founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder.

Neuralink's brain implants need regulatory approval before being sold. In 2021, the FDA published its initial comments on brain-computer interface devices, calling the field “progressing rapidly.”