Can Musk's Neuralink brain chip really change the world?

Key Facts

• "It's nothing novel, but implantable technology takes a long time to mature, and reach a stage where companies have all the pieces of the puzzle, and can really start to put them together," says Anne Vanhoestenberghe, professor of active implantable medical devices, at King's College London.
• The technology - known as a brain-computer interface (BCI) - is where many millions of dollars of research funding appears to be heading at the moment.
• Neuralink's device, about the size of a coin, is inserted in the skull, with microscopic wires which can read neuron activity and beam back a wireless signal to a receiving unit.
• "You've got to ask yourself, would you risk brain surgery just to be able to order a pizza on your phone?" Instead she thinks the first mass market uses may be in stimulating the brain to tackle problems like treatment-resistant depression, dementia, and even some sleeping disorders, although the benefits are far from certain and research is at an early stage.

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