Neuralink: Neural Lace startup

[DocM]

A low resolution, needle injectable, Neural Lace has been injected into living mice, 

 

Gizmodo....

 

 

For now, the mice with this electronic mesh are connected by a wire to computer — but in the future, this connection could become wireless.

The most amazing part about the mesh is that the mouse brain cells grew around it, forming connections with the wires, essentially welcoming a mechanical component into a biochemical system.

 

But Musk's Neuralink venture is for human - AI interfacing.

 

Resistance is futile

 

Ars Technica....

 

Elon Musk is setting up a company that will link brains and computers

The ultimate goal would be a neural lace to enhance peoples cognitive abilities.

Get ready to plug in.

Billionaire futurist space explorer Elon Musk has a new project: a "medical research company" called Neuralink that will make brain-computer interfaces. Musk's projects are frequently inspired by science fiction, and this one is a direct reference to a device called a "neural lace," invented by the late British novelist Iain M. Banks for his Culture series. In those books, characters grow a semi-organic mesh on their cerebral cortexes, which allows them to interface wirelessly with AIs and create backups of their minds.

Having a neural lace, in Banks' fiction, makes people essentially immortalif they die, they're revived from the last backup. Musk isn't seeking immortality just yet, however. Though he's said publicly several times that he'd like to upload and download thoughts, possibly to fight against evil AI, he imagines that Neuralink's proof-of-concept products will be implanted electrodes for treating epilepsy and depression. They will be much like current implants for treating Parkinson's, which work by regulating electrical activity in the brain.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company will likely be funded entirely by Musk or by the Founders Fund, a VC firm founded by Peter Thiel. The Journal also reports that the company has hired three people already: "Vanessa Tolosa, an engineer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and an expert in flexible electrodes; Philip Sabes, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco, who studies how the brain controls movement; and Timothy Gardner, a professor at Boston University who is known for implanting tiny electrodes in the brains of finches to study how the birds sing."

Their work will build on over a decade's worth of successful brain-computer interfaces (BCI), beginning with BrainGate, an early BCI tech that allows people to type messages on a computer by picking out letters one-by-one on a screen. It works by connecting to the brain's motor cortex: When the person thinks about moving, that thought is translated into movements of a cursor. But this method is still quite slow, and Musk's company hopes to speed things along.

Other BCI experiments have involved using computers to control the movements of insects and rats. The infamous "Robo Rat," developed in 2002, could be made to turn right or left while walking by stimulating brain regions related to right and left whisker sensations as well as its reward centers. Today, this kind of technology is so commonplace that there is a science kit aimed at children called the RoboRoach, which allows kids to put a brain implant into a cockroach to control its movements.

It's not clear how well the Robo Rat and RoboRoach scenarios would work in humans, whose brains are far more complex and still poorly understood. But that's not stopping Musk, who is known for making prototypes first and asking questions later. He told Vanity Fair that "we're already cyborgs" and "a meaningful partial-brain interface" is just "four or five years away."

[DocM]

 

So he'll be feeding the info to Tim Urban's WaitButWhy site

 

http://waitbutwhy.com
 

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

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He told Vanity Fair that "we're already cyborgs" and "a meaningful partial-brain interface" is just "four or five years away."

We gonna have to become cyborgs if we want to travel in space.

 

Or invent a coolant which is similar to the one that helps some frogs (and fish) unfreeze and stay alive.

[DocM]

Quote

https://t.co/4I44hFJzFC

 

Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future

 

>

When I wrote about Tesla and SpaceX, I learned that you can only fully wrap your head around certain companies by zooming both way, way in and way, way out. In, on the technical challenges facing the engineers, out on the existential challenges facing our species. In on a snapshot of the world right now, out on the big story of how we got to this moment and what our far future could look like.

 

Not only is Elon’s new venture—Neuralink—the same type of deal, but six weeks after first learning about the company, I’m convinced that it somehow manages to eclipse Tesla and SpaceX in both the boldness of its engineering undertaking and the grandeur of its mission. The other two companies aim to redefine what future humans will do—Neuralink wants to redefine what future humans will be.

>

Contents

 

Part 1: The Human Colossus

Part 2: The Brain

Part 3: Brain-Machine Interfaces

Part 4: Neuralink’s Challenge

Part 5: The Wizard Era

Part 6: The Great Merger

 

 

[Beittil]

I have only read parts of it so far, but man... that is some mind boggling $&@?

[DocM]

Wouldn't surprise William Gibson one iota.

 

 

[DocM]

 

 

 

[DocM]

The Neuralink high bandwidth brain-machine interface appears to be heading for human trials,

 

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

On 23/01/2022 at 20:31, DocM said:

The Neuralink high bandwidth brain-machine interface appears to be heading for human trials,

 

 

Not yet...

 

Quote

U.S. regulators rejected Elon Musk’s bid to test brain chips in humans, citing safety risks

On at least four occasions since 2019, Elon Musk has predicted that his medical device company, Neuralink, would soon start human trials of a revolutionary brain implant to treat intractable conditions such as paralysis and blindness.

Yet the company, founded in 2016, didn’t seek permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) until early 2022 – and the agency rejected the application, seven current and former employees told Reuters.

The rejection has not been previously reported. In explaining the decision to Neuralink, the agency outlined dozens of issues the company must address before human testing, a critical milestone on the path to final product approval, the staffers said. The agency’s major safety concerns involved the device’s lithium battery; the potential for the implant’s tiny wires to migrate to other areas of the brain; and questions over whether and how the device can be removed without damaging brain tissue, the employees said.

A year after the rejection, Neuralink is still working through the agency’s concerns. Three staffers said they were skeptical the company could quickly resolve the issues – despite Musk’s latest prediction at a Nov. 30 presentation that the company would secure FDA human-trial approval this spring.

//

Reuters

[DocM]

On 03/03/2023 at 07:03, Jim K said:

Not yet...

Reuters

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Such FDA rejections do not mean a company will ultimately fail to gain the agency’s human-testing approval. But the agency’s pushback signals substantial concerns, according to more than a dozen experts in FDA device-approval processes.

 

The lithium battery issue could be handled the same way it has for deep brain stimulation, moving the battery to the front of the chest. Lithium batteries themselves are not a big issue in implants, being used for DBS, pacemakers, etc.

The issue of electrode migration and removeability should be strictly evaluated, I don't think anyone expects anything less. The difference here is that the electrodes are flexible rather than rigid micro-wires as in some other BMI implants.

⁹

 

Neuralink

 

[DocM]

Neuralink heading to human trials

Full text

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We are excited to share that we have received the FDA’s approval to launch our first-in-human clinical study!

This is the result of incredible work by the Neuralink team in close collaboration with the FDA and represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people.

Recruitment is not yet open for our clinical trial. We’ll announce more information on this soon!

 

[+Matthew S. Subscriber²]

Geart so Elon can now have a legion of zombies, mind you seem there's already a few here that are his pets...