In case you missed it probably you’ve been living under a rock or something incredibly heavy, a major global announcement was passed on couple hours ago which could well determine what value our lives still hold here on Earth
Naahh, definitely not another wave of Coronavirus but
Research nerd and Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s neuroscience startup Neuralink on Friday unveiled a coin-sized computer chip that could provide the age-old solution to treating brain and neuro-ailments.
The move is regarded as another giant stride though early step taken toward the goal of curing human diseases with the same type of implant.
Co-founded by Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc and SpaceX CEO Musk in 2016, San Francisco Bay Area-based Neuralink aims to implant wireless brain-machine interfaces that include thousands of electrodes in the most complex human organ to help cure neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s, dementia and spinal cord injuries and ultimately fuse humankind with artificial intelligence.
Though the mighty risks of artificial intelligence can’t be understated, Neuralink implant’s most important achievement beyond medical applications would be “some kind of AI symbiosis where you have an AI extension of yourself.”
This practically would mean having small-smart devices that electronically stimulate nerves and brain areas to treat hearing loss and Parkinson’s disease have been implanted in humans for decades.
Brain implant trials have also been conducted with a small number of people who have lost control of bodily functions due to spiral cord injuries or neurological conditions like strokes.
“An implantable device can actually solve these problems,” Musk said on a webcast Friday, mentioning ailments such as memory loss, hearing loss, depression and insomnia.
Musk did not provide a timeline for those treatments, appearing to retreat from earlier statements that human trials would begin by the end of this year. Neuralink’s first clinical trials with a small number of human patients would be aimed at treating paralysis or paraplegia, the company’s head surgeon Dr. Matthew MacDougall said.
For the Friday Neuralink webcast, Musk presented what he described as the “three little pigs demo.”
Gertrude, the pig with a Neuralink implant in the part of its brain that controls the snout, required some coaxing by Musk to appear on camera, but eventually began eating off of a stool and sniffing straw, triggering spikes on a graph tracking the animal’s neural activity.
Musk said the company had three pigs each implanted with the chip for the past couple months, and also revealed a pig that previously had an implant. They were “healthy, happy and indistinguishable from a normal pig,” Musk said. Musk said the company predicted a pig’s limb movement during a treadmill run at “high accuracy” using implant data.
Furthermore, the Neuralink’s chip, is roughly 23 millimeters (0.9 inch) in diameter which Musk described as “a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires” making it relatively minute in size.
“I could have a Neuralink right now and you wouldn’t know,” Musk said. “… Maybe I do.”
We hope you don’t for now though Mr Musk!
Stanford University neuroscientist Sergey Stavisky said the company had made substantial and impressive progress since an initial demonstration of an earlier chip in July 2019.
“Going from that to the fully implanted system in several pigs they showed is impressive and, I think, really highlights the strengths of having a large multidisciplinary team focused on this problem,” Stavisky said.
Neuralink’s chip could also improve the understanding of neurological diseases by reading brain waves, one of the company’s scientists said during the presentation.
Though some researchers however opined longer studies would be required to determine the longevity and lifespan of the device.
Also, Startups such as Kernel, Paradromics and NeuroPace are trying to exploit advancements in material, wireless and signaling technology to create devices similar to Neuralink making it really a race in time to create an actual feasible device.
Though another question which albeit could be on the lips of users will be about personalization of data. We are not envisaging a Google Ad kind of scenario here, but with the extent user data is been mined and misused, you can only prepare for the worst nowadays.
Originally Posted On NaijaTechGuy
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