Elon Musk's start-up is aiming to mesh brains with computers.
Elon Musk's start-up has gotten a monkey to play a video game using only its mind.
The Neuralink start-up is devoted to meshing brains with computers.
Mr Musk has long contended that merging minds with machines is crucial if people are going to avoid being outpaced by artificial intelligence.
A video posted on YouTube showed a macaque monkey named "Pager" playing Pong.
The animal was essentially using thought to move paddles that bounce digital balls back and forth on screen.
"To control his paddle, Pager simply thinks about moving his hand up or down," said a voice narrating the video.
"As you can see, Pager is amazingly good at MindPong," it said.
Neuralink devices were implanted on two sides of Pager's brain to sense neuron activity.
Then the monkey played the game for a few minutes using a joystick to let software figure out the signals associated with hand movements.
When Pager successfully batted the digital ball from one paddle to the other, he was rewarded with a banana smoothly served through a straw.
Watch the video here.
