Breakthrough Device Could Eventually Restore Vision to the Blind

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just awarded “breakthrough device” status to “Blindsight,” a revolutionary neural implant chip that could one day restore sight to the blind.

The experimental technology was developed by Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain chip firm. “The Blindsight device from Neuralink will enable even those who have lost both eyes and their optic nerve to see,” Musk wrote on X. “Provided the visual cortex is intact, it will even enable those who have been blind from birth to see for the first time.” No comparable technology is currently on the market or in such an advanced stage of development.

“To set expectations correctly, the vision at first will be low resolution, like Atari graphics, but eventually it has the potential to be better than natural vision and enable you to see in infrared, ultraviolet or even radar wavelengths, like Geordi La Forge,” Musk added, referring to the blind character in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” who used a futuristic visor to see.

According to the FDA, the Breakthrough Devices Program “is a voluntary program for certain medical devices and device-led combination products that provide for more effective treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating diseases or conditions.” In 2023, 145 new medical devices received this designation.

While being granted breakthrough status does not mean that the FDA is saying a product is safe or effective, the program is intended to help speed up development on promising new technologies. The program also opens up channels of communication for companies like Neuralink to interface directly with FDA experts throughout the research and development phase. This can help speed new innovations to market faster than the traditional approval process.

Human eyes are among the most advanced and dynamic of any species, making any breakthroughs in restoring sight all the more challenging and impressive. Our two eyes function somewhat like a camera. Light enters the eye through the cornea and lens, focusing on the retina at the back of the eye. The retina contains photoreceptor cells (rods and cones) that convert the light into electrical signals which are then passed to the optic nerve. The optic nerve functions as a “visual highway,” passing those signals on to the brain’s visual cortex, which processes the information and creates the perception of sight.

When someone goes blind, the process breaks down, often due to damage at one of several stages of the vision process. The most common is damage to the retina, often from diseases like retinitis pigmentosa or macular degeneration, resulting in the eye no longer being able to sense light. Optic nerve damage, which can result from conditions like glaucoma, stops the transmission of visual signals to the brain. In some cases, congenital issues prevent the development of a functional visual system, resulting in a person being born blind.

Neuralink’s Blindsight technology aims to bypass damaged or missing components of the eye, such as the optic nerve, by sending visual information directly to the brain. It focuses on using the visual cortex, which is often still functional even when the eyes or optic nerve are damaged.

More specifically, Blindsight will implant a series of tiny electrodes into the visual cortex which will receive electrical signals that mimic the natural signals the brain would receive from the eyes. Instead of relying on the eyes, an external camera or visual sensor will capture a person’s surroundings. This sensor will process the image data and convert it into electrical impulses that are fed into the brain implant.

Implanting electrodes in the visual cortex, the basic technology behind Blindsight, has been around for decades and has helped restore very limited sight – essentially just the ability to sense light and shadows – to a select few blind people. As Tech Crunch reports, “The issue historically has been the low density of electrodes on the array, which is on the order of dozens, meaning what is ‘seen’ is really more like a few stars winking on and off with no discernible pattern, because the parts of the cortex pierced and stimulated are essentially random.”

In essence, what Blindsight has set out to do is dramatically increase the density of electrodes to transmit more complex images.

There are undoubtedly still some major hurdles for Musk and Neuralink to overcome. For instance, individuals who have been blind from birth do not have the neural pathways to process “sight” as we understand it. The jump from implanting a few dozen electrodes in the visual cortex to potentially hundreds or thousands is also a gargantuan task that many experts in the field are understandably skeptical of.

Nonetheless, Musk’s entire career has been built around making bold proclamations and then challenging himself and his team to follow through. Many were likewise skeptical that Musk could build a successful commercial rocket company. Now his vision is on track to send America back to the moon and possibly to Mars before the decade is out. Musk single-handedly brought electric vehicles into the mainstream with Tesla and revolutionized satellite internet with Starlink. Restoring sight to the blind could be yet another “impossible” dream that Musk just might make a reality.

Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.