There has been much controversy surrounding Neuralink, Elon Musk’s latest project designing tools for communicating with the brain. We’ve asked Juan Lerma, Chief Editor of our flagship journal Neuroscience, to comment on the latest Neuralink announcements.

Elon Musk releases the advances of the Neuralink project.
By Juan Lerma, Chief Editor of Neuroscience, the IBRO Journal.

A few days ago, Elon Musk, the business tycoon and engineer, presented to the press the advances of Neuralink, a company of neurotechnology that was founded in 2016. The news spread quickly around the world and provoked vivid discussions not only about the project but also about this millionaire and his other projects.  Neuralink seems to be an immensely ambitious plan that ultimately seeks to connect the human brain to a computer. Ideally, such a connection could help cure diseases such as Alzheimer’s or, more realistically, allow people with neurological diseases to control computers or other devices with their minds.

In the presentation, Musk described the Neuralink sensor, which consists of a small probe (about 8 mm in diameter) containing more than 3,000 flexible 4 µm thick electrodes, which can ideally monitor the activity of >1,000 brain neurons at once. He showed a kind of robot, which was connected to the device and the electrodes, that were implanted in the areas of the brain that control motor and sensory functions of three small pigs. The whole procedure could be done under local anaesthesia and Musk showed the audience the animal’s brain activity captured by the device displayed on a computer screen. “All are healthy, happy and no different from a normal pig,” he said.

As I mentioned the presentation raised some controversy, as some have described this device as a revolutionary progress. But when one examines how the field of brain-machine interfaces has evolved, one realizes that this advancement consists primarily of miniaturization of the implantable device and taking advantage of the latest developments in wireless connectivity. While this is valuable and represents an improvement in implantable devices, it cannot be considered an advance from a conceptual point of view, let alone that this constitutes revolutionary progress.

Devices that allow the recording of tens or even hundreds of neurons are known and used in research laboratories for decades. This new device allows recording the activity of hundreds of neurons simultaneously and transferring it online to a computer wirelessly. This is great, but it only adds to the armamentarium of recording neuronal activity in vivo. Musk also commented that they are seeking FDA approval to implant these devices in humans. The question is, what do they want to do with the recorded neuronal activity? A rationale may be that if memory is imprinted on neural activity, then recording that activity will allow us to capture the individual’s memory. Perhaps, here comes the most intriguing landscape, this makes transhumanism finally possible.

That brain-machine interfaces will make it easier to perform actions just by thinking is unquestionable. In fact, brain activity has already been used to move robotic arms and wheelchairs and to interact with a computer to execute pre-set commands. But perhaps the pinnacle of transhumanism is transferring the memory stored in one brain to a computer’s hard drive so that it can be “implanted” in another brain, or even a robot. Perhaps those who believe this would be possible sooner or later should study more biology and learn that a brain does not seem to store memory the way a hard drive does.  As scientists, we cannot say that this is impossible, but so far it may be better to focus our efforts on understanding how the brain acquires and stores information. We are far from understanding this process and therefore other questions fall into the realm of fiction.