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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Elon Musk expects to start human clinical trials for his Neuralink wireless device in six months. SOPA Images / Contributor Using brain chips, the company wants to enable disabled patients to move and communicate again. As it seeks U.S. regulatory approval for clinical trials in people, Neuralink has been testing on animals in San Francisco and Texas. Musk said the company wants "to be extremely careful and certain" the chip "will work well before putting a device into a human." "But," he said, "we've submitted, I think, most of our paperwork to the FDA, and probably in about six months, we should be able to upload Neuralink in a human." Neuralink is a small device with electrode-studded wires. In addition to making refinements to the implant, the company has been working on a surgic...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Patrick Pleul/The Associated Press Elon Musk’s Neuralink, a medical device company, is under federal investigation for potential animal-welfare violations amid internal staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and sources familiar with the investigation and company operations. Neuralink Corp is developing a brain implant it hopes will help paralyzed people walk again and cure other neurological ailments. The federal probe, which has not been previously reported, was opened in recent months by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. The probe, one of the sources said, focuses on violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which governs how researchers treat and test some animals. The investigation has come at a time of growing employee dissent about Neuralin...

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Federal authorities are investigating Elon Musk's Neuralink for potential animal-welfare violations. According to Reuters , staff members have complained that the company is rushing animal testing procedures, causing the animals involved to suffer and die. NurPhoto / Contributor | Getty Images Elon Musk co-founded Neuralink Corporation, a neurotechnology company, in 2016. Its goal is to develop a brain-machine interface (BMI) that will connect the human brain to computers. Musk believes this technology will help people with neurological disorders — such as paralysis or severe motor impairments — to regain control of their bodies and improve their quality of life. Neuralink's implant is a chip surgically implanted into the brain. There it records individual neurons' activity, transmitting that information to a compu...