Neuralink says the FDA designated its Blindsight implant as a ‘breakthrough device’

says the Food and Drug Administration is assigned his experimental Blindsight implant as a “breakthrough device”. The company develops technology to restore sight to blind people.

Manufacturers who voluntarily submit to the FDA and agency appointees are given “the opportunity to interact with FDA experts through several different program options to effectively address issues arising during the premarket review phase.” The FDA also prioritizes breakthrough devices for review.

Blindsight is separate from telepathy, enabling patients with spinal cord injuries allowing them to play video games and design 3D objects using their imagination. Neuralink owner and founder Elon Musk said the company had implanted the chip in a second human patient

Musk that Blindsight “already works on monkeys. The resolution will be low at first, like the first Nintendo graphics, but eventually can surpass normal human vision.” (There are federal investigators (but Musk said in March that “No monkey has died or been seriously injured from a Neuralink device”)

Blindsight “will provide sight even to people who have lost both eyes and the optic nerve” After the FDA’s designation. “Provided the visual cortex is intact, it will give sight for the first time even to those born blind.” He added that while Blindsight’s resolution is low to begin with, “ultimately, it has potential. [to] better than natural vision and give you vision in infrared, ultraviolet and even radar wavelengths.”

These are lofty claims, and Neuralink, if it actually succeeds, is a long way from fully restoring sight to someone who has lost it. This is not the first company or research group to work on it vision restoration implants either. Meanwhile, as TechCrunch Given that such people do not “develop vision with their eyes”, it is unlikely that Blindsight or similar technology can help people who have been blind since birth.