What do scientists think about Neuralink - the company of neural interfaces Ilona Mask

Brain implants of the "stentrod" type (stentrode), which are delivered to the brain along with the blood flow and read the signal of neurons while in the blood vessels next door

Ilon Musk is known as a person with an extremely practical way of thinking. He never fantasizes, but sets out concrete plans, which are then realized. Even the most ambitious and fantastic projects of Ilona Mask, in which no one believed in, are now forcing skeptics to shyly pull tails.

Two weeks ago, another initiative of Ilona Musk became known - the recruitment of employees to the new company Neuralink began. Probably, she will be engaged in the development of a neural interface - a converter of analog brain signals into digital signals of a computer and back. What do neuroscience and neuroinformatics think about this initiative?

Neuralink is still wrapped in a veil of secrecy. The news about the recruitment of employees on March 27 was first reported by the Wall Street Journal , then a note from the Reuters news agency appeared. In both cases, there is very little factual information in the text, but a lot of speculation.
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It is known that the company was registered in July 2016 in California, and according to the documents it plans to engage in research in the field of medicine. The names of the first employees are known, among them are well-known scientists Vanessa Tholos, an engineer and a specialist in flexible electrodes from the Livermore National Laboratory of Lawrence, Philip Sabes, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies brain control and Timothy Gardner, a professor at Boston University who is known for his operations by implanting electrodes into the brain of reels to study birds singing.

Based on this, journalists suggest that Neuralink will develop implantable brain implants as part of the neural interface. We can only guess why Ilon Musk is going to use these neural interfaces. But knowing the ambitious nature of the entrepreneur, it can be assumed that this will not be a highly specialized medical device, but a kind of commercial device for mass use. Something that will give people new abilities and new opportunities. It should be noted that to date, no experimental brain-computer interface (brain-computer interface, BCI) is allowed for clinical use.

Ilon himself gave a few tips in his speech at the Code conference last year. He said that the neural interface should become a “digital layer over the cerebral cortex,” and its components do not have to be implanted surgically. Instead, the equipment can be placed by injection into the neck, and will enter the brain itself with the flow of blood .


The IEEE Spectrum edition has taken comments from experts in the field. Although they are well aware of the complexity of creating neuroimplants, they expressed enthusiasm in connection with the project of a famous businessman and visionary: “Ilon Mask is a person who is willing to take risks and invest a lot of money, so it will be great to see that he will deal with these [neural interfaces]” - Says Thomas Oxley (Thomas Oxley), a neuro engineer who has been developing a medical brain implant since 2010 and hopes to begin clinical trials in 2018.

Neuroimplants are now used in medical practice. About 150 thousand people with Parkinson's disease use such devices - electrodes are implanted deep into the brain and generate regular electrical impulses. Now researchers are experimenting with similar implants for the treatment of depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders.

Mary Lou Jepsen from Openwater , a startup that develops non-invasive neural interfaces for brain scanning and telepathy, warns of the danger of introducing foreign objects into the brain, even in a non-invasive way through the blood stream. They said that this could have unpredictable consequences.

Especially interesting is the comment by Thomas Oxley, because it was he who invented brain implants of the stentrode type (stentrode), which are delivered to the brain along with the blood flow. He not only supports this method of implantation, but is also the executive director of Synchron , which is developing such devices and is about to begin clinical trials in Australia in 2018. He says that stentrods, on the contrary, are more secure because they do not come into contact with brain tissue. They are embedded in the blood vessels that feed the neurons, and record the signal of neurons from there, being in close proximity to the neuron. With proper signal processing, it can be decrypted and used, for example, to control the exoskeleton for the movement of paralyzed people (in the illustration at the beginning of the article).

If Musk chooses this method of delivering electronics to the brain, then the result should not be expected in the near future, says Oxley. His group has been working on a catheter positioning system in the motor region of the brain for two years. But such devices have great potential, because controlling the exoskeleton with the power of thought will help millions of patients around the world. And not only sick people. All old people will like to move at high speed, driving a metal frame in the style of "transformer".

There are other neuroimplant technologies that Ilon Musk can experiment with: these are flexible polymer probes , a micro-ECoG cylinder that hangs over the brain, carbon fiber electrodes, or so-called neural dust — a network of tiny wireless electrodes scattered throughout the nervous system. Active research is underway in this area, so Ilona Mask will have a lot to choose from.

Interestingly, the leaders of start-ups in the field of neuroscience gladly accept a new competitor. According to them, the arrival of Ilona Mask in neurobiology means that this industry is ripe for a big breakthrough: “This is a very significant moment,” says Thomas Oxley. “The sphere of neural interfaces is entering the central scene in Silicon Valley, it has been recognized as one of the most promising.”