First vision-restoring chip implanted in patient's eye

Max Hodak, CEO of Science Corporation, announced that the first vision-restoring chip, named PRIMA, was implanted in the eye of the first person suffering from Stargardt disease.

Max Hudak, Chief Executive Officer of "Science Corporation" announced that he implanted the first vision restoration chip called PRIMA in the eye of the first person suffering from Stargut's disease.

According to the report of Ambassador Arjan, quoted by TechCrunch, according to him, working with PRIMA is part of a wider process to develop a new brain-computer interface.

Stargat is an inherited eye disease that gradually destroys central vision.

According to Hudak, the former CEO and one of the co-founders of Neuralink, which produces brain chips, he says: The retina is part of the central nervous system. We consider cochlear implants, retinal prostheses, and motor prostheses to be different types of brain-computer interfaces.

He pointed to a vision in which brain-chip interfaces include a wider range of medical technology applications and are not just a way to control computers.

Although PRIMA is commercially available in Europe for patients who have lost vision due to geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, the company believes the approach can be applied to a variety of diseases, including Stargat's disease, which is currently considered incurable.

This disease affects the outer part of the retina and leads to the gradual death of light sensor cells in the eye, and probably preserves the inner part of the retina, which transmits visual signals to the brain. The said disease leads to the creation of a central blind spot in the eye, which becomes larger with the passage of time.

The company claims that the patient received the PRIMA implant in May. This process is part of an ongoing trial at the Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia. The mentioned patient saw one letter during the first rehabilitation session and was able to read one word in the second session.

To use this device, patients underwent a one-hour surgery, during which a small chip was implanted behind their eyes, where the damaged photoreceptors were destroyed. Next, they were given glasses equipped with a camera that transmits a view of the world to the chip. This implant basically works like an artificial light receptor.

Hudak says about this: The device that this patient has is a two by two millimeter implant that is placed behind his eye and therefore looks like a straw. Of course, it is not the case that a person has a wide field of vision with color vision. It is a patch in the center of vision and black and white. Of course, the gadget has a high contrast, and because of this, a person can see several letters at once. The next step is to widen the field of view. Therefore, to make a larger implant, the curvature of the eye must be taken into account, and the electrodes must be made smaller to approach the level of visual detail found in normal vision.