Elon Musk says a third patient was implanted with a Neuralink brain. Work is part of a thriving field

Elon Musk said a third person has received an implant from his brain-computer interface company Neuralink, one of many groups working to connect the nervous system to machines.

“We have … three people with Neuralinks and they are all working well,” he said during a wide-ranging interview at a Las Vegas event broadcast on his social media platform X.

Since the first brain implant about a year ago, Musk said the company has developed devices with more electrodes, higher bandwidth and longer battery life. Musk also said Neuralink hopes to install testing devices on 20 to 30 more people this year.

Musk did not provide details about the latest patient, but there are previous updates.

The second recipient — who has spinal cord and received a transplant last summer — has been playing video games with the help of the device and learning how to use computer-aided design software to create 3-D objects. The first patient, also paralyzed after a spinal cord injury, described how playing video games and chess helped him.

But while such developments at Neuralink often attract attention, many other companies and research groups are working on similar projects. Two studies last year in the New England Journal of Medicine described how brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, helped people with ALS communicate better.

Who works in computer communication technology?

More than 45 trials involving brain-computer interfaces are underway, according to the US academic website. Efforts are intended to help treat mental disorders, overcome brain damage and other uses.

Several research labs have already shown that people can accurately control computer pointers using BCIs, said Rajesh Rao, co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology at the University of Washington.

Rao said Neuralink could be unique in two ways: Surgery to implant the device is the first time a robot has been used to insert flexible electrode strips into the human brain to record neural activity and control the devices. And those wires can record from more neurons than other connections.

Still, he said, the benefits of Neuralink's approach have yet to be demonstrated, and some competitors have overtaken the company in other ways. For example, Rao said companies like Synchron, Blackrock Neurotech and Onward Medical are already doing BCI tests on people “using non-traditional methods or adaptive methods” that include nerve recordings and stimulation.

What are the benefits of BCIs?

Marco Baptista, chief scientific officer of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, called BCI technology “very exciting” with potential benefits for people with disabilities.

Through clinical trials, “we'll be able to see which approach wins,” he said. “It's too early to know.”

Baptista said his foundation often tries to support research groups financially and with technical assistance — though it has not given money to Neuralink.

“We need to really support high-risk, high-reward initiatives. This is obviously high risk, high reward. We don't know how safe it will be. We don't know what will happen,” he said.

How are BCIs tested and regulated?

Neuralink announced in 2023 that it had received approval from US regulators to begin testing its device on humans.

Although many medical devices enter the market without clinical studies, high-risk ones that receive pre-market approval require what is called an “investigational device exemption” from the Food and Drug Administration, said Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies the most dangerous tools.

Neuralink says it has this exemption, but the FDA said it cannot confirm or disclose information about specific studies.

Redberg said the FDA is often involved in every step from recruiting patients to testing devices to analyzing data. He said this control system prioritizes safety.

He also pointed out another layer of protection: All research involving humans requires an institutional review board, or IRB. It may also be known as an ethics review board or an independent ethics committee. Members should include at least one non-scientist and one person not affiliated with the institution or organization that forms the board.

The role of such boards “is to assume that there is a reasonable risk and a reasonable chance of benefit and that patients are informed about those before they sign up,” said Redberg.

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