(Reuters) – Billionaire Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink plans to launch a trial in October aimed at helping people with speech impairments translate their thoughts into text, the company’s president said.

Dongjin “D.J.” Seo told an audience at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Seoul this week that the study targets people who have lost the ability to speak, enabling them “to go directly from brain to voice without any keyboards in between.”

“If you’re imagining saying something, we would be able to pick that up,” he said.

Neuralink said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted the device a Breakthrough Device designation for speech, a status that can expedite development, assessment and review.

Neuralink did not immediately respond to a requ

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