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| Neuralink shows a monkey playing a game by thinking |
Neuralink, a startup run by billionaire Elon Musk, is dedicated to developing human-machine interfaces. The company posted a three-minute video on YouTube of a monkey playing simple video games on screen using only his brain.
The video clip shows a monkey with fused wounds on both sides of the brain playing with the mind when the monkey underwent a transplant six weeks before the video was shot.
Although the monkey is trained to move the joystick, it is not connected and the monkey can control the joystick by moving it up and down.
Musk wrote on his official Twitter account: With Neuralink's first product, paralyzed people can use smartphones faster than anyone else using their fingers.
The newer version of the device should be able to convert signals from sections of neurons in the brain into signals from layers of motor and sensory neurons in order for a paraplegic patient to walk again.
Musk added: The device is implanted in the upper part of the skull and can be charged wirelessly, giving the user a natural feeling.
Neuralink uses more than 2,000 implanted electrodes, records electrical signals from the brain, and implants them into the motor cortex of monkeys to coordinate the movement of the hands and arms.
"We use mathematical modeling of the relationship between patterns of neural activity and the different joystick motions that they create and they use that data to calibrate the decoder," the company said.
Neuralink, founded by Musk in 2016, aims to implant wireless computer chips into the brain to treat neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and spinal cord injuries and to integrate people with artificial intelligence.
Musk's story revolves around companies like Tesla (Tesla) and SpaceX, which are gathering together diverse experts to develop technologies that were previously restricted to academic laboratories, including rockets and electric vehicles.