Technology Elon Musk’s brain chip company, Neuralink, faces animal abuse claims

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Elon Musk’s brain chip company Neuralink is defending itself against claims that its researchers abused monkeys in the testing of its products.

Neuralink – which hopes to create a revolutionary interface that would allow humans to control devices with their brains – said in a statement on Monday that its research animals were “respected and honored by our team”. The company was responding to allegations that the animals were tortured and left to die in horrific experiments at its facilities.

In a lengthy complaint filed with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) said the research caused “extreme suffering” in its test subjects, who “had their brains mutilated in shoddy experiments and were left to suffer and die”. PCRM is a non-profit advocacy organization that promotes a plant-based diet and alternatives to animal testing.

The complaint targets a partnership between Neuralink and the University of California, Davis that was carried out between 2017 and 2020, in which researchers implanted a device “approximately the size of a quarter” into the skull of macaque monkey test subjects.

 

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UPDATE - Elon Musk's company confirms monkeys died in brain chip testing project, denies animal cruelty

DAVIS, Calif. -- Elon Musk's implant company Neuralink, which aims to enable brains to connect and communicate with computers, has acknowledged that monkeys died as part of its testing procedures but denies allegations of animal cruelty.

In a blog post on its website, Neuralink addressed the "recent articles" that have "raised questions around Neuralink's use of research animals at the University of California, Davis Primate Center" (UC Davis) and said that "all novel medical devices and treatments must be tested in animals before they can be ethically trialed in humans."

Macaque monkeys have been used in testing by Neuralink as the company has been developing Bluetooth-enabled implantable chips -- inserted into the monkey's brains -- that the company says can communicate with computers via a small receiver.

In April last year, Neuralink claimed monkeys can play Pong -- a computer game - using just their minds when it released a video of Pager, a male macaque, moving a cursor onscreen without using a joystick to do so.

 
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