Neuralink gets breakthrough tag for sight-restoring implant

pharmaphorum September 19, 2024
Phil Taylor

Elon Musk’s Neuralink has been awarded breakthrough status from the FDA for an implantable chip – dubbed Blindsight – that promises to restore the sight of people with vision impairment.

There’s little information on the product yet and, as is often the case with Neuralink developments, the main source of news is Elon Musk himself via his X.com platform (formerly Twitter).

In a post, the tech billionaire claimed Blindsight “will enable even those who have lost both eyes and their optic nerve to see”, although, he tempered expectations by noting that, initially at least, it will be “low resolution, like Atari graphics.”

If the patient’s visual cortex is intact, “it will even enable those who have been blind from birth...

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