 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Brain-computer interface Neuroprosthetics |
| Founded | July 2016 |
| Founder | Elon Musk |
| Headquarters | Pioneer Building, San Francisco, California, U.S. (as of 2020) |
Key people |
|
| Owner | Elon Musk |
Number of employees | Around 100 (08/2020) |
| Website | neuralink |
Neuralink Corporation is a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk and others, developing implantable brain–machine interfaces (BMIs). The company's headquarters is in San Francisco; it was started in 2016 and was first publicly reported in March 2017.
Since its founding, the company has hired several high-profile neuroscientists from various universities. By July 2019, it had received $158 million in funding (of which $100 million was from Musk) and was employing a staff of 90 employees. At that time, Neuralink announced that it was working on a "sewing machine-like" device capable of implanting very thin (4 to 6 μm in width) threads into the brain, and demonstrated a system that read information from a lab rat via 1,500 electrodes, they had anticipated starting experiments with humans in 2020; but have since moved that projection to 2021.
Some claims made by Musk in relation to the technology have been criticized by several neuroscientists and publications, including the MIT Technology Review.
Overview
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Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Elon Musk and eight partners; Ben Rapoport, Dongjin Seo, Max Hodak, Paul Merolla, Philip Saps, Tim Gardner, Tim Hanson and Vanessa Tolosa, a group of experts in different areas.
In April 2017, the blog Wait But Why reported that the company was aiming to make devices to treat serious brain diseases in the short-term, with the eventual goal of human enhancement, sometimes called transhumanism. Musk said his interest in the idea partly stemmed from the science fiction concept of "neural lace" in the fictional universe in The Culture, a series of 10 novels by Iain M. Banks.
Musk defined the neural lace as a "digital layer above the cortex" that would not necessarily imply extensive surgical insertion but ideally an implant through a vein or artery. Musk explained that the long-term goal is to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence", which he perceives as an existential threat to humanity if it goes unchecked. As of 2017, some neuroprosthetics can interpret brain signals and allow disabled people to control their prosthetic arms and legs. Musk spoke of aiming to link that technology with implants that, instead of actuating movement, can interface at broadband speed with other types of external software and gadgets.
As of 2020, Neuralink is headquartered in San Francisco's Mission District, sharing the former Pioneer Trunk Factory building with OpenAI, another company co-founded by Musk. Musk was the majority owner of Neuralink as of September 2018, but did not hold an executive position. Jared Birchall was listed as CEO, CFO and president of Neuralink in 2018; his role has been described as formal. An August 2020 tweet confirmed past reports that Musk is the current CEO. The trademark "Neuralink" was purchased from its previous owners in January 2017.
Members
The company is made up of a group of experts in different areas such as neuroscience, biochemistry, robotics, applied mathematics, machinery, among others. It is currently looking for experts in different scientific areas to shape his team.
Its founding members are:
- Elon Musk.
- Max Hodak, president of the company. He previously worked on the development of brain-computer interfaces at Duke University.
- Matthew MacDougall, Head of Neurosurgery at Neuralink and neurosurgeon at California Pacific Medical Center. He was previously working at Stanford where he worked in labs that implemented and designed brain-computer interfaces.
- Vanessa Tolosa, Director of Neural Interfaces. She previously led a neurotechnology team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that worked with a wide variety of technology on technology prostheses that were used in clinical and academic settings.
- DJ Seo, director of the Implantation System. He was the co-inventor of "neural dust" a technology he developed while studying at UC Berkeley.
- Philip Sabes, senior scientist. He was a professor of physiology at UC San Francisco and led a lab that studied how the brain processed sensorial and motor signals.
- Tim Gardner, professor of biology at Boston University, in which they have worked on the implementation of brain-computer interfaces in birds.
- Ben Rapoport, neurosurgeon with a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.
- Tim Hanson, researcher at the Berkeley Sensor and Acuator Center.
By August 2020, only three of the eight founding scientists remained at the company, according to an article by Stat News which reported that Neuralink had seen "years of internal conflict in which rushed timelines have clashed with the slow and incremental pace of science."
Technology
By 2018, the company had "remained highly secretive about its work since its launch", although public records showed that it had sought to open an animal testing facility in San Francisco; it subsequently started to carry out research at the University of California, Davis. In 2019, during a live presentation at the California Academy of Sciences, the Neuralink team revealed to the public the technology of the first prototype they had been working on. It is a system that involves ultra-thin probes that will be inserted into the brain, a neurosurgical robot that will perform the operations and a high-density electronic system capable of processing information from neurons.
Probes
The probes, composed mostly of polyamide, a biocompatible material, and coated in a thin gold thread, will be inserted into the brain through an automated process performed by a surgical robot.
Each probe consists of an area of wires that contains electrodes capable of locating electrical signals in the brain, and a sensory area where the wire interacts with an electronic system that allows amplification and acquisition of the brain signal.
Each of the probes contains 48 or 96 wires, each of which contains 32 independent electrodes; achieving this way a system of up to 3072 electrodes per formation.
Robot
Studies involving the insertion of probes in the brain have shown that, due to their rigidity, the body recognizes them as an unknown material and, consequently, generates tissue to get rid of them, which, in turn, long term, makes them unusable.
For this reason, Neuralink has developed a robot capable of inserting flexible probes, allowing the rapid insertion of multiples of these to minimize trauma that can trigger a bounce reaction.
This robot has an insertion head with a 40 μm diameter needle made of tungsten-rhenium designed to attach to the insertion loops, made to transport and insert individual probes, and to penetrate the meninges and tissue cerebral. The robot is capable of inserting up to six probes (192 electrodes) per minute.
Electronics
Neuralink has developed an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) to create a 1,536-channel recording system.
This system consists of 256 amplifiers capable of being individually programmed ("analog pixels"), analog-to-chip converters within the chip ("ADCs") and a peripheral circuit control to serialize the digitized information obtained.
It aims to convert information obtained from neurons into an understandable binary code in order to achieve greater understanding of brain function and the ability to stimulate these neurons back.
Currently, electrodes are still too big to record the firing of individual neurons, so they can record only the firing of a group of neurons; Neuralink representatives believe this issue might get mitigated algorithmically, but it's computationally expensive and does not produce exact results.
In July 2020, according to Musk, Neuralink obtained a FDA breakthrough device designation which allows limited human testing under the FDA guidelines for medical devices.
Reception
Several neurology scientists have commented on the intention of Musk and members of Neuralink to build a brain-computer interface. The response from the scientific community has been mixed.
At a live demonstration in August 2020, Musk described one of their early devices as "a Fitbit in your skull" which could soon cure paralysis, deafness, blindness, and other disabilities. Many neuroscientists and publications criticized these claims. For example, MIT Technology Review described them as "highly speculative" and "neuroscience theater".
Mary Lou Jepsen, founder of Openwater, a company that also works in the area of brain-computer interfaces, with the goal of creating a telepathy system, has expressed concern about the rejection reactions that probes can cause.
Thomas Oxley, MD, PhD, CEO of Synchron, an Australian company that is also developing a system to insert brain probes via blood-vessel-borne catheters that avoid any direct penetration of brain tissue, and therefore do not cause trauma, says no efficacy results from Neuralink are expected soon, as the technology is not advanced enough to achieve this. However, he believes that because Musk is willing to invest large sums of money in his company, it will be "exciting to see what he will develop."
Criticism
Neuralink tests their devices by surgically implanting them in the brains of live monkeys, pigs and other animals. These methods have been criticized by groups such as PETA.
