Neuralink, one of the companies creating brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), has received a “breakthrough device tag” from the FDA for Blindsight, an experimental implant that it hopes can restore human vision. The tag speeds up approval processes leading to human trials.

Ever the optimist, Neuralink founder and owner Elon Musk tells us that “it will even enable those who have been blind from birth to see for the first time.”

How would that work?

Elon Musk says Blindsight works by bypassing damaged optic nerves and directly stimulating the visual cortex with microelectrodes.

The visual cortex is the brain area responsible for processing visual information. The tech billionaire compared its early-stage vision quality to video game graphics from the Atari console.

Dale Arasa, “Neuralink’s Blindsight may soon restore peoples’ eyesight,” Technology Inquirer, September 19, 2024

Tech writer Kris Holt tells us at Engadget that the idea has already been tested on monkeys:

Musk claimed back in March that Blindsight “is already working in monkeys. Resolution will be low at first, like early Nintendo graphics, but ultimately may exceed normal human vision.” (Federal investigators have reportedly looked into Neuralink’s animal testing practices but Musk said in March that “no monkey has died or been seriously injured by a Neuralink device.”)

“Neuralink says the FDA designated its Blindsight implant as a ‘breakthrough device’,” September 18, 2024

The underlying idea is the same as with Neuralink’s Telepathy device aimed at restoring movement after paralysis: Neurons use electricity to communicate and can thus interface with electronics. The reason we can see is not simply that we have eyes, of course, but because we have a visual cortex in the back of the brain that interprets the images they provide. People whose visual cortex is damaged may be blind even if their eyes provide perfect vision. Even if they do see something and react to it (blindsight), they don’t know it.

Caution is urged

If the neurons that tell us what our eyes are seeing can be paired with machine vision, a person without eyesight might be able to see again. But it is early days yet and the researchers face many obstacles, as Devin Coldewey cautions at TechCrunch,

Musk is implying that the device would plug in and grant sight. That is not possible. Even among those who have only recently lost their sight to trauma or disease — which are by far the most common causes — meaning the visual cortex has been trained since birth to function normally, sight would not be “like Atari graphics,” as Musk suggests. While there is a surprising and promising level of plasticity in adapting to systems like this, it is a difficult and disorienting process.

Furthermore, people who have been blind from birth will not have developed the biological capacity for seeing through their eyes, meaning that despite the visual cortex’s cellular layout being optimized for vision tasks, the pathways that create the concept of vision sighted people understand will not exist. It is misleading for Musk to suggest otherwise, though I suspect the blind and low-vision community is accustomed to sighted people making this kind of mistake.

This is not all to say that Neuralink’s Blindsight is bad or won’t work — the company appears to have created a genuinely better microelectrode array, and possibly the means to implant it more efficiently and with lower risk of rejection or brain damage.

“Neuralink’s ‘breakthrough device’ clearance from FDA does not mean” it has cured blindness, September 17, 2024

Many people who have been blind since birth might be happy to try though.

Some work has already been done in this area

At Wired last April, Emily Mullin profiled Brian Bussard, 56, who lost his eyesight due to retinal detachments:

In 2021, he heard about a trial of a visual prosthesis at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Researchers cautioned that the device was experimental and he shouldn’t expect to regain the level of vision he had before. Still, he was intrigued enough to sign up. Thanks to the chips in his brain, Bussard now has very limited artificial vision—what he describes as “blips on a radar screen.” With the implant, he can perceive people and objects represented in white and iridescent dots.

Bussard is one of a small number of blind individuals around the world who have risked brain surgery to get a visual prosthesis. In Spain, researchers at Miguel Hernández University have implanted four people with a similar system. The trials are the culmination of decades of research.

“The Next Frontier for Brain Implants Is Artificial Vision,” April 15, 2024

Even a little vision can be better than none and everyone agrees that it is early days yet.

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You may also wish to read: Man uses the power of thought to make a computer speak for him. The goal for a man with ALS was to synthesize his voice so the computer would speak for him when he thought the sounds. While brain–computer interfaces might give us superhuman powers in science fiction, they will likely mainly compensate for lost human ones.

Will Neuralink’s brain implant help paralysis victims? Addressing disabilities like paralysis, limb loss, and blindness seems a more realistic goal than the hyped (and feared) human–machine hybrids. When Elon Musk announced his first implant recipient late last month, a broad public first learned that many people with disabilities use implants now.

and

The mystery of blindsight helps us understand the mind better. How can a blind person demonstrate awareness of an object in his visual field — and yet not be conscious of it? The long-neglected traditional distinction between sensation and perception can help us understand what is really happening with blind sight.