2023-06-01 07:55:24
On Thursday, May 26, 2023, the American company Neuralink announced via a tweet that it had received authorization from the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to test their connected chips on the first patients.
Co-founded by billionaire Elon Musk in 2016, this start-up specializing in neuro-technology has been developing connected devices in the medical field for more than 5 years. During a conference given in 2020, Elon Musk had presented their new cutting-edge technology: a chip implemented in the cranial box, capable of curing many neurological diseases, ranging from paraplegia to blindness, or even to Alzheimer’s and the Depression.
The start-up had already presented a first prototype in 2019, consisting of a small box glued behind the ear and connected to the brain. Significant progress has since been made; now the chip is completely invisible. Measuring today 23 millimeters in length and 8 millimeters in width, it has the same thickness as the human cranial box and can therefore be embedded directly in place of a piece of bone of the same size. It would leave only a very small scar on the top of the skull. The device would also be very autonomous: it is charged by induction thanks to a helmet worn at night and then works all day.
The placement of the chip in the brain being a delicate and risky operation, it could only be carried out by robot surgeons (also developed by the company Neuralink). The operation would also be done in less than half a day, without requiring general anesthesia. The thousands of electrodes contained in the filaments of the chip must be deposited in the brain to the nearest millimeter, so that there is no bleeding.
The first tests have already been carried out on animals, in particular on monkeys and on sows (the latter having one of the brains closest to humans). At the conference given in 2020, Elon Musk had presented three sows having been more or less far in the flea test Neuralink. In appearance, no trace of implant was visible. One of them, Dorothy, had been chipped for 2 months before it was removed. She did not present any after-effects of the withdrawal of the device, Elon Musk wanting to demonstrate through this example that if men decided to have the connected object implanted but then changed their minds, this would (in principle) have no consequences for their health. The second sow presented, Gertrude, has two implants Neuralink : one embedded in the brain and the other in the spinal column. Her brain activity can be tracked directly on the computer she’s connected to, and the movement of her four legs is linked to neural impulses from the second implant. This device could allow paralyzed people to walk again: the implant embedded at the bottom of the spine, where the neuronal connections are interrupted, would make it possible to artificially recreate operational neuronal connections. The start-up also sees much bigger: if the device actually works on para or quadriplegic patients, it could also make it possible to cure blindness, deafness or even memory loss (the second implant having to be placed in the body human according to each medical problem).
If the FDA has given the green light to Neuralink to conduct a series of clinical tests, the device is still a long way from being marketed. Indeed, it will first be tested on a limited number of volunteer patients to ensure its safety and effectiveness. Applications for volunteering are not yet open. In addition, these cranial implants do not only present risks to human health. The question of the computer security of the device also arises: if the connected object were to be the target of a cyberattack, what would be the consequences for the human body? Similarly, the question of collecting data from connected patients must also be addressed. All of this is still very vague and poses real risks to their privacy.
Finally, if the fleas Neuralink were actually to be used and marketed, the debate on equal access to care would also be relaunched. Since the United States is not a country with a universal social security system, it is likely that only people who can pay several thousand dollars can hope to be treated thanks to Neuralink.
Elon Musk does not intend to stop at the simple fact of making paralyzed people walk again or giving sight to the blind. In a few years, he would also like to offer a multifunction chip capable of storing our memory in an extremely detailed way and allowing us to (re)view our memories. To see how far science will allow him to go…
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