Neuralink

 

WHAT IS NEURALINK?

Neuralink is a company founded by Elon Musk in 2016 that’s developing a brain-computer interface called “the Link,” which is a surgically embedded neural-chip implant designed to decode and stimulate brain activity.

“The device is designed to connect human brains directly to computers,” Ramses Alcaide, CEO of Neurable, a neurotech company developing non-invasive, brain-computer interfaces in the form of headphones, told Built In. “[Neuralink’s technology] is capable of recording and decoding neural signals and then transmitting information back to the brain using electrical stimulation.”

The implant itself is called “the Link.” This coin-sized brain chip is surgically embedded under the skull, where it receives information from neural threads that fan out into different sections of a subject’s brain in control of motor skills. Each wire contains 1,024 electrodes, which are sensors capable of recording and emitting electrical currents, and are “so fine and flexible that they can’t be inserted by the human hand,” according to Neuralink’s website. That’s why Neuralink has built a neurosurgical robot that’s designed to become fully automated.

The company is also developing an app that would allow a person to manipulate a keyboard and mouse using only their mind.

“Neuralink is really at the vanguard of creating the commercialized, scalable versions of what has been pioneered in academia,” said Sumner Norman, a scientist at nonprofit startup Convergent Research and former chief brain-computer interface scientist at software firm AE Studio.