Billionaire Elon Musk's company Neuralink received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to conduct its first-in-human clinical study involving its brain implant called the Link on Thursday (May 25), CNBC reports.
The company said the Link aims to help patients with severe degenerative diseases regain their ability to communicate using only neural signals, such as moving cursors and typing with their minds.
“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,” the company wrote in a tweet shared on Thursday.
The extent of the approved trail was not known at the time of publication on Thursday. Neuralink is among several companies in the growing brain-computer interface (BCI) industry, which features systems that decipher brain signals and translates them into commands for external technologies.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, had previously stated the company also intends to one day successfully treat brain disorders, as well as restore vision, even to those born blind, during a livestreamed event in November 2022.
"Even if we do not succeed with that problem, we are confident at this point that we will succeed at solving many brain injury issues–spine injury issues–along the way," Musk said.