Washington, May 25 (EFE).- The Neuralink company, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, announced Thursday it received approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration to conduct human studies on brain implants.

Elon Musk, co-founder and chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., speaks during an unveiling event for the Boring Company Hawthorne tunnel in Hawthorne, California, USA, 18 December 2018. EPA/ROBYN BECK / POOL/FILE

The company advanced the administration’s green light for the first human studies on its Twitter account.

“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 early December, Musk said Neuralink was ready to perform brain implants in humans within six months.

At that time, the tycoon said the administration was concerned about the possible overheating of the implant (which includes microwires in brain tissue), as it could result in the leakage of chemical elements from the implant into brain mass.

The implant’s function will be to “read” brain activity to transmit orders that help restore some severely damaged brain functions after a heart attack or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which result in serious communication skills damage.

Brain implants have only been developed in one direction to date: from the brain to the outside (usually a computer that processes the signals), but the Neuralink project aims to transfer information in the other direction too – toward the brain.

Neuralink is developing two types of implants in parallel, one to restore vision “even to those who have never had it” and another to restore basic bodily functions in people paralyzed by damage to the spinal cord. EFE

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