A man paralyzed from the neck down due to a spinal cord injury he sustained in 2007 has shown he can communicate his thoughts, thanks to a brain implant system that translates his imagined handwriting into actual text.
The device – part of a longstanding research collaboration called BrainGate – is a brain-computer interface (BCI), that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to interpret signals of neural activity generated during handwriting.
In this case, the man – called T5 in the study, and who was 65 years of age at the time of the research – wasn't doing any actual writing, as his hand, along with all his limbs, had been paralyzed for several years.
But during the experiment, reported in Nature earlier in the year, the man concentrated as if he were writing – effectively, thinking about making the letters with an imaginary pen and paper.
Yeah, prosthetics are also pushing in that direction with nerve signals.
Living in a military town, I see a lot of vets with artificial limbs. This kind of thing could be amazing for them.
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In February 2021, Musk said Neuralink was working with the FDA to secure permission to start initial human trials later that year. But human trials didn’t commence in 2021.
Then, in March 2022, Neuralink made a further application to the FDA to establish its readiness to begin humans trials.
One year and three months later, on May 25 2023, Neuralink finally received FDA approval for its first human clinical trial. Given how hard Neuralink has pushed for permission to begin, we can assume it will begin very soon.
The approval has come less than six months after the US Office of the Inspector General launched an investigation into Neuralink over potential animal welfare violations.
The FDA had quite a list of issues that needed to be resolved before human trials could commence, as was reported in a Reuters investigation, which claimed to have spoken to several Neuralink sources.
Most of these concerns called for Neuralink to perform thorough and repeated testing and data collection over an extended period. This was likely a deciding factor in why the approval process to begin human testing took as long as it did.
It can’t be said with certainty that all of the issues have been fully resolved. But considering the rigour of the FDA’s approval process, we might conclude they have at least been resolved to a point of satisfaction for the FDA.
Don't want to quote the entire piece--it covers a fair bit of ground.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT