Elon Musk’s company aims to restore speech to patients with neurological diseases thanks to a brain implant
For those who find themselves forced to live with neurological problems, communicating may no longer be a utopia. Neuralink, the neurotechnology company co-founded by Elon Muskwill begin a clinical trial in the United States to restore the ability to express themselves to those who live in silence.
How it works
A brain implant will be able to translate thoughts into text, with the timbre of the patient’s voice being replicated. «It is essential to understand that an implantable device can concretely solve these problems. Many don’t realize it, but all our senses are nothing more than electrical signals sent by neurons to the brain. We intervene on those” explained Elon Musk, speaking on the topic. Some conditions, including multiple sclerosis, stroke and cerebral palsy, prevent the signals sent by the brain from turning into sounds. And this is where Neuralink’s mission comes in: brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) detect and decode impulses starting from the cortex, with the will to speak which is then translated into digital language.
The studies
Neuralink has already started five clinical studies involving three continents: from the United States to the United Kingdom, from Canada to the United Arab Emirates. Recently, the US Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the company the designation of an “innovative device” for speech recovery.
The Story of Bradford G. Smith
Neuralink has already achieved success in this field: the fifty-year-old American Bradford G. Smith, suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and completely paralyzed, has regained his voice thanks to Musk’s company. Through the Neuralink implant and AI systems he is able to manage the computer with his thoughts and his voice tone has been cloned thanks to a vocal synthesizer. Last April, Smith himself communicated the results achieved, with a post on X: «I am the third person in the world to receive the Neuralink brain implant. The first with Sla. The first non-verbal. I’m typing this message in my brain. It’s my primary form of communication.”
