Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday that he wants to work on brain-controlling wearable and implantable technology, and Facebook's recent acquisition of CTRL-labs was a step in that direction.

"The goal is to eventually make it so that you can think something and control something in virtual or augmented reality," said Zuckerberg, in a conversation with Dr. Joe DeRisi and Dr. Steve Quake of the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub, a Bay Area-based research center backed by the Facebook CEO and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Facebook agreed to acquire CTRL-Labs last month for between $500 million and $1 billion, making it one of the social network's biggest purchases. The company is working on a wristband that will allow people to control devices based on signals from their spinal cord. Upon completion of the deal, CTRL-labs will join Facebook Reality Labs, which is working to develop augmented-reality smart glasses.

Zuckerberg, DeRisi and Quake were chatting as part of the Facebook CEO's series of discussions focused on the future of technology and society. Throughout the conversation, they touched on the challenges and advantages of using implanted technology to read a human's neurons. Quake said there are health risks involved with implantable technology, while DeRisi pointed out that implantables can decode real-time inner speech that could help people with limited physical or speech abilities from a stroke, for example.