by British patients are to be implanted with Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip in order to control paralyzed people with their thoughts.
The start-up of Mr. Musk, which has already carried out tests in the USA, said a clinical study in Great Britain started with the hospitals of the University College London and Newcastle about the NHS Foundation Trust of Tyne Hospital after they received green light from the British medical supervisory authorities.
In the study, seven patients are hired whose movement is severely affected by spinal cord injuries or neurological diseases and installed the neuralink chip under your skull to communicate with a smartphone or tablet.
The N1 chip of the company-one so-called brain-computer border area (BCI)-Hat approximately the size of a 10p coin and connects with 128 threads that are thinner than human hair. These threads combine 1,000 electrodes to the human brain that can read electrical signals that are generated by neuronal activity and transform these waves into keyboard lines or cursor movements.
Neuralink said: “The start of this study in Great Britain builds on the success of our attempts in the USA and marks an important step to bring our life-changing BCI technology to people with neurological diseases around the world.”
Last year Noland Arbaugh from Arizona was the first person to be implanted with neuralinks brain chip. Since then he has shown how the chip enables him to control a computer and play complicated video games.
After his operation, however, around 85 percent of the threads lost their connection to his brain from his neuralink chip. With the help of software updates, the company was able to maintain a high level of performance to improve the way the chip read its brain signals.
While Neuralink originally aims at patients with serious health conditions, Mr. Musk has long said that his chips could ultimately lead to a kind of “symbiosis” symbiosis, which otherwise strengthens brain strength.
He said in a podcast that he expected hundreds of millions of people to install the brain chips, and claimed that there were “superhuman abilities” to “upload their memories” or heal blindness.
Neuralink has already started working on exams in Canada and the United Arab Emirates, although Great Britain is the first country in Europe to start a study on technology. It was approved by the regulatory authority Medicines and Healthcare Products.
According to the technology of University College London, Neuralink’s technology had the potential to change people with neurological diseases around the world. The operations are carried out with the R1 surgical robot from Neuralink.
