If one has been following the uprising of technology over the past decades, this name particularly strikes them- Elon Musk. He has been relentlessly chasing down the hurdles and has also been bold in his attempts in doing so. Stating the obvious examples of Tesla and SpaceX, his entrepreneurial journeys have made the impossible happen and are paving the way for a reality that we could refer to as a promising future. Neuralink lies under the same category of a reality-disruptive technology. Let’s dive into what it is really about!


         

      Neuralink is a secretive company founded by Musk in 2016 and not reported anywhere until 2017. It was founded with the vision to develop implantable Brain-machine interfaces. Kinda confused, HUH? Well to make it simple, “It is a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires” as stated by Musk himself. “A Fitbit in my skull? Are you freaking kidding me? What am I supposed to do with it? Count the calories I spend in overthinking?” could be the questions wandering your mind. Well, it is not exactly the same as a Fitbit. It will be focusing on WHAT the brain does rather than HOW much. So, what’s the whole point in doing this…


   

             

    You bet it was! It all started when Amy (also a fellow neuro-Scientist) wanted to get to know what’s really going on inside Sheldon’s mind (Ok maybe he does share enough already, so we can rule this out)

Cringe filled jokes aside, the company primarily aims to read neurological signals of the brain by using the embedded chip. From these signals, data can be interpreted and converted to information that would make sense and further so can be used to perform certain actions. If successfully integrated, this system could be used to help cure conditions such as dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and spinal cord injuries. That is from communicating with others to navigating to places, all one has to do is think and these embedded sensors will interpret the signals and aid in accomplishing the action. Once again, this is the primary goal to achieve.

The ultimate goal is “to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence”. Musk has been against the concept of AI for a long time. He believes that AI will end up being  much smarter than human brains and they could easily overtake the human race by 2025. (Internal screaming intensifies) On the contrary, he also adds that such a scenario can be avoided if an efficient intercommunication link can be developed between the machines and humans. The central problem of communicating with AI is actually “bandwidth” –  An AI with the capabilities of the modern machine could overwhelm one with loads of information and if one is going to interact back by using voice or thumbs, well you are going to be like a Grandma driving in the high-speed lane. But imagine that you are a Cyborg, half man half machine kinda deal and you are able to communicate with the machine directly from your mind. This is what we would like to call a “SKAJAAM” moment. 💥💥💥




              Now that we've seen enough with the if’s and maybe’s , Let’s look at how far the tech has been developed. The human brain that we all know is a complex and the most delicate part and it also shifts in the skull. The major development by Neuralink has been the development of flexible threads- neural links, which are less likely to damage the brain. The abstract notes that the system could include “as many as 3,072 electrodes per array distributed across 96 threads.”  These electrodes can monitor the activity of 1000 neurons. The neural links though have a drawback when it comes to implementing it in the brain because it’s so “flexible”.

 



This challenge has been tackled by developing a special neurosurgical robot that embeds the chip automatically in the brain. It operates so carefully without damaging any of the blood vessels. This machine has been commented on as "it looks like a crossbreed between a microscope and a sewing machine". And yes, you heard that right, it is a robot that would perform surgery on your brain. The topic itself will have plenty to talk about, so let’s save it for some other post.

            



   Neuralink have developed a chip that could read, clean up, and amplify signals from the brain. Their goal is to transmit this data wirelessly to an external device that will be mounted behind the ear. This device will also carry the only battery of this system. So far experiments have been conducted using lab rats and recently Musk himself has conducted a presentation where he shows a pig with the implant and the vital signal from its brain was recorded. A further challenge lies ahead in decoding the data and analyzing the patterns in the signal and to come up with a way of processing the signals (this is the biggest challenge and a work in progress). Musk has promised to take things up a notch and test the system with humans. Hopefully, if everything goes right, this may turn out to be the technology of the century. Or maybe not and it ends up a very very expensive fancy toy that just looks back on what potential it had . 

Feel free to let us know about your opinions for this tech in the comments.




Sorry for the long post, here's an image of neural link threads! 😋