These 11 tech companies want to hack your brains

Picture a day where you flip through your memories like you would Facebook or Instagram, or you get a chip sewn into your brain to help you learn languages twice as fast and communicate your thoughts in an instant to millions of people. Such are the promises of so-called brain hacking technologies, and for the past couple of years, everyone from Elon Musk to DARPA scientists has been studying our noggins to get us there.

How close are we and how real is any of this? The human brain is a complex beast, and it’s still early days, but we could be closer to becoming Neo in The Matrix than we think — and some in Silicon Valley are starting to believe this is the next phase of human evolution. Here are 11 companies working on tech that could one day make you faster, smarter, stronger and even calmer at the push of a button.