Story of the month
This month, we take a look at the application of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) to the Central Nervous System and neurological diseases as a whole (Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, etc.), taking stock of the breakthrough already achieved by Neuralink, while also discussing possible future developments and the difficulties these technologies raise.
THE BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE, IN THE CURRENT ERA OF AI
The first time a device was introduced into the human body to help the human brain activate certain body movements was … 30 years ago! The patient was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The procedure, known as Deep Brain Stimulation (“DBS”), proved safe and effective in controlling some Parkinson’s symptoms. However, it has failed to establish itself as the preferred treatment for this dreadful disease (not to mention other diseases with similar effects, such as epilepsy, dystonia and essential tremor).
Some medical equipment companies (“MedTech”) are continuing their research into DBS (e.g. Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Abbott Laboratories, etc.). Medtronic, the leader in this market, offers its “BrainSense” technology, which can record signals emitted by the brain to enable personalized, adaptive therapy. Public funding for DBS is accelerating sharply (almost $12 billion by 2023, compared with just $6.5 billion in 2016), which is hardly surprising given that 90,000 new cases of Parkinson’s are diagnosed in the USA every year. But it is in the field of AI that the prospects for discoveries seem most promising.
NEURALINK: WHEN AI GETS INVOLVED … WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM ELON MUSK TOO!
Neuralink is an American start-up co-founded by Elon Musk. Its aim is to restore functionalities to patients whose brains and bodies no longer communicate with each other. For example, it aims to help paralyzed patients walk or move a mouse on a computer. Of course, there are many obstacles to overcome, particularly from a regulatory point of view, before this can be achieved. But Neuralink (perhaps with the help of Elon Musk’s visibility) is said to be valued at nearly $7 billion at the time of its latest fund-raising, following authorization from the US regulatory body, namely the Food & Drug Authority (“FDA”), for a trial on a human, which began in May 2023.
In practical terms, Neuralink implants around a thousand tiny electrodes in the human brain, which record the spikes in electrical impulses generated by the neurons. Neuralink’s device (called “The Link”, a term that illustrates the desire to re-establish a connection between the brain and the body) includes an algorithm that analyses and aggregates these signals, before transmitting them via Bluetooth to an external computer for decoding. The algorithm has been trained to recognize the equivalence between a particular electrical signal emitted by the brain and the corresponding action (e.g. activation of a given muscle).
It is therefore a form of Artificial Intelligence that underpins The Link’s technology. This case also shows the strength of AI compared with other “BCI”-type technologies (Brain-Computer Interface), in that The Link, according to Neuralink, analyses and processes signals much more quickly.
LET’S DREAM A LITTLE …
The other interesting aspect of Neuralink’s projects is that they can be extended to a very wide range of other potential applications. Here, the list might sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but these are avenues that, though certainly not yet realized, are at least plausible: in addition to the therapy of neurological disorders and the restoration of functional capacities (on which the Medtech companies mentioned above are working), BCI can cover areas such as :
- augmented communication between humans and computers (or even between humans) using thought, without recourse to language;
- augmented reality;
- human memory storage, for example on a cloud server.
