A Neuralink rival says its eye implant has restored vision to blind people

One of these, called the Argus II, was approved for commercial use in Europe in 2011 and in the US in 2013. That implant involved larger electrodes placed on top of the retina. The manufacturer, Second Sight, stopped production of the device in 2020 due to financial problems. Neuralink and some others, meanwhile, aim to bypass the eye entirely stimulate the visual cortex of the brain instead of.

Hodak says the Prima differs from other retinal implants in its ability to provide “shape vision,” or the perception of shapes, patterns and other visual elements of objects. However, what users see is not “normal” vision. First, they don’t see in color. Instead, they see a processed image with a yellowish tint.

The trial involved people with geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, which causes gradual loss of central vision. People with the condition still have peripheral vision, but have blind spots in their central vision, making it difficult to read, recognize faces, or see in dim light.

In AMD, specialized cells called photoreceptors are damaged over time. At the back of the retina, photoreceptors convert light into signals that are sent to the brain. “The photoreceptors are lost, but the retina is largely preserved. In our approach, the implant takes the place of the photoreceptors,” says Daniel Palanker, professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University, who invented the Prima implant.