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Elon Musk said that the first human patient has received a brain implant from his startup Neuralink. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk reported that the patient is recovering well, and the initial results of the Neuralink brain implant procedure are promising. Neuralink's brain implant is designed to assist individuals with traumatic injuries in operating computers using their thoughts. In May, the company announced FDA approval for its first human trials. Last year, Neuralink began recruiting patients with quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for the trial. On X, Musk...

A Russian researcher with a cult following claims to have implanted a chip into his brain in the bold hopes of being able to control his dreams. Michael Raduga put his life on the line last month as he lost more than a 'litre of blood' while performing brain surgery on himself in his home in Kazakhstan. The 40-year-old, who has no neurosurgery qualifications, compared his extremely dangerous experiment to the film of Inception - claiming his 'electrode' one day has the potential to change the course of lucid dreams. Gruesome footage of the procedure shows him holding his skin...

12 years ago, Gert-Jan Oksam was in a biking accident. He emerged alive, but unable to use his legs due to a spinal cord injury. Today he can walk about 100 meters — or just over 300 feet— all on his own. Essentially, he's taught his spinal cord to work again thanks to some small implants in his back and brain, which have rehabilitated the connection between his legs and his mind. Today he can walk about 100 meters — or just over 300 feet— all on his own. Essentially, he's taught his spinal cord to work again thanks to...

The human cerebral cortex is made up of six cellular layers, but at Precision Neuroscience, a team of scientists and engineers is working to build a device that’s reminiscent of a seventh. The device is called the Layer 7 Cortical Interface, and it’s a brain implant that aims to help patients with paralysis operate digital devices using only neural signals. This means patients with severe degenerative diseases like ALS will regain their ability to communicate with loved ones by moving cursors, typing and even accessing social media with their minds. The Layer 7 is an electrode array that resembles a...

Billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are betting on the New York-based Synchron as the answer to Elon Musk’s Neuralink.Founded by Australian professors Tom Oxley and Nick Opie, the company on Dec. 16 announced it had closed a $110 million Series C funding round involving Bezos Expeditions, Gates Frontier, and ARCH Venture Partners.The Synchron Switch is a “brain-computer interface” that is implanted in the blood vessels at the surface of the motor cortex of the brain via the jugular vein.Once set, the interface will detect and wirelessly transmit information from the brain, allowing severely paralysed individuals to control personal devices...

Researchers from the New York University School of Medicine have developed a brain implant designed to detect pain sensations in real-time and deliver bursts of pain-relieving stimulation. The device is still deeply experimental but a new proof of concept study demonstrates it working effectively in rodent models. In the world of brain implants the chasm between science fiction and reality is still quite vast. Apart from some exciting human tests showing paralyzed individuals with implants regaining a sense of touch or controlling computers with their mind, most research in the field is still nascent. Animal tests have demonstrated incremental technological...

Musk demoed the company’s brain-computer interface technology on Friday in live pigs. He described it as “like a Fitbit in your skull.” Musk said the Neuralink can help fight blindness, memory loss, insomnia, and other medical conditions. lon Musk’s brain-machine interface company, Neuralink, conducted a live demo of its technology on Friday, showing a coin-sized device without wires. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO brought along three pigs, who had varying levels of interest in cooperating. Eventually, the audience was shown real-time neural signals from one of the pigs, which Musk named Gertrude. According to Musk, Gertrude has had the implant...

In the past, the notion of human brain-machine interfaces (BMI) was confined to science fiction, depicted most recently in film and television shows like Anon and Altered Carbon. These two productions and others like them foretell of an age where human interactivity with machines will be seamless, providing enhanced data capabilities and beyond. The technology to make such BMIs a reality may not be as far-fetched as you might think. Neuralink, a company co-founded by Elon Musk, is developing next-generation brain-machine interfaces with scalable neural channel density and real-time data processing. Some of the stated use cases for this technology...

SNIP Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the University of Washington in Seattle collaborated to invent a neural device with a replaceable drug cartridge, which could allow neuroscientists to study the same brain circuits for several months without worrying about running out of drugs. These 'plug-n-play' drug cartridges were assembled into a brain implant for mice with a soft and ultrathin probe (thickness of a human hair), which consisted of microfluidic channels and tiny LEDs (smaller than a grain of salt), for unlimited drug doses and light delivery. Controlled with an elegant and simple user...

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is launching a $26 million program to help military personnel with psychiatric disorders using electronic devices implanted in the brain. The goal of the five-year program is to develop new ways of treating problems including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, all of which are common among service members who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan."We've seen far too many times where military personnel have neuropsychiatric disorders and there's very few options," says Justin Sanchez, a program manager at DARPA.DARPA is known for taking on big technological challenges, from missile defense to creating...

This city has proclaimed today Terri Schiavo day. Last year Mrs. Schiavo, 27, suffered a loss of potassium in her body that caused her heart to stop beating and resulted in a coma. She underwent surgery, performed by Dr. Yoshio Hosobudhi of the University of California at San Francisco in December, to implant a stimulator in her brain. The brain stimulator implant was a success, said her husband, Mike. Mrs. Schiavo is slowly emerging from the coma at the Mediplex Medical Center, a neurological care center in Bradenton, he said. She will undergo at least a year of speech, occupational...

BOSTON (AP) - For years, futurists have dreamed of machines that can read minds, then act on instructions as they are thought. Now, human trials are set to begin on a brain-computer interface involving implants. Cyberkinetics Inc. of Foxboro, Mass., has received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients. If successful, the chips could allow patients to command a computer to act - merely by thinking about the instructions they wish to send. It's a small, early step in a mission to improve the...