Elon Musk is calling for volunteers to be the first to receive a Neuralink brain chip.
His neurotechnology company, Neuralink, received approval for a human trial from the FDA this year, after previously only testing on monkeys and pigs.
Musk says the brain chip “has the potential to restore full body movement” in people with quadriplegia.
READ MORE! Elon Musk’s brain chip company gets approval to test on humans
“The first human patient will soon receive a Neuralink device,” he posted to X.
“Imagine if Stephen Hawking had had this.
Neuralink has now officially opened registrations for the first clinical trial.
“If you have quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), you may qualify,” it said.
Neuralink says its ultimate goal is to enable people with paralysis to “control external devices with their thoughts”.
“During the study, the R1 Robot will be used to surgically place the N1 Implant’s ultra-fine and flexible threads in a region of the brain that controls movement intention,” it said.
“Once in place, the N1 Implant is cosmetically invisible and is intended to record and transmit brain signals wirelessly to an app that decodes movement intention.
“The initial goal of our BCI is to grant people the ability to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.”
Musk established Neuralink back in 2016 and now has a team of scientists and engineers.
The company’s goal is to close the communication gap between the brain and computers.
If you want to volunteer for the in-human trial, click here.
Neuralink won’t be the first company to insert a computer chip into the brain.
It follows in the footsteps of Synchron, which was given FDA approval to begin in-human trials back in 2021.
In July last year, the company confirmed it had successfully implanted chips in humans.
In fact, Synchron revealed it inserted a computer chip into four people’s heads last year in Australia.
