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Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company “Neuralink,” says it has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to launch its first-in-human clinical study. If true, it means that actual humans could be getting a device from Neuralink implanted in their heads, how suprising does that sound?

In a tweet (Image Above), Neuralink tweeted “We are excited to share that we have received the FDA’s approval to launch our first-in-human clinical study! This is the result of incredible work by the Neuralink team in close collaboration with the FDA and represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people. Recruitment is not yet open for our clinical trial. We’ll announce more information on this soon!”

Neuralink has been accused of abusing its monkey test subjects, a claim the company denied. The FDA rejected an early 2022 Neuralink application for human trials, as reported by Reuters, apparently outlining “dozens of issues” the company needed to address.

Synchron

Neuralink is not the first to implant a brain-computer interface in a human: Synchron was approved by the FDA to begin US trials in 2021 and announced the first US brain-computer implant last July. This January, it published the results of an earlier study of four human patients in Australia, read more about that here!

Recruitment is not yet open for Neuralink, as of right now the best thing you can do is follow the Neuralink Twitter page to stay updated, follow here.