HEALTH TECH: Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface
September 18, 2021 • 1 min read
-- Neuralink raises another $205 million to go beyond MindPong
Elon Musk is best known for pushing the limits of transportation.
A recent capital raise of $US205 million for his brain-machine interface company, Neuralink, could establish his reputation in an entirely new field.
Institutional and corporate investors, including Google Ventures, are backing Musk’s technology ambitions to shunt signals from neural links in the brain to the body’s motor/sensory neuron clusters.
The development could enable people to use their neural activity to operate computers and devices. For example, someone with paralysis could use a smartphone or a computer without having to use their thumbs.
Musk has tested his brain-machine interface on a nine-year-old macaque monkey called Pager.
Scientists implanted a Neuralink interface in the monkey’s brain, allowing it to move a cursor on a computer screen.
Musk believes Neuralink has the potential to treat a wide range of neurological disorders to restore sensory and movement function, and even how we interact with each other and the world.