Researchers from University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital recently announced the results of a trial for a new device that helps the blind not just see again, but read again.
The Prima device is a novel wireless subretinal photovoltaic implant paired with specialized glasses that project near-infrared light to the implant, which acts like a miniature solar panel. The device is being developed by Science Corporation, which specializes in brain-computer interfaces and neural engineering. So, how does it work?
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Prima is an electronic eye implant that is paired with augmented-reality glasses. The implant kind of looks like a SIM card. It's 2 mm x 2 mm and only 30 microns (0.03 mm) thick, which is about half the thickness of a human hair.
The PRIMA ultra-thin microchip. Science Corporation
The chip is implanted during a vitrectomy, during which your eye's vitreous jelly is removed— that's the juice that fills the center of your eyeball and basically holds everything in the right place. Once the jelly is removed from between the lens and the retina, a surgeon inserts the microchip under the center of a patient’s retina.
About a month after installation, once the eye has settled, the chip can be activated when the patient puts on augmented-reality glasses outfitted with a video camera connected to a small computer that is attached to the patient’s waistband.
Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms process information from the glasses, which is then converted into an electrical signal. The signal passes through the retinal and optical nerve cells into the brain, where it is interpreted as vision. To make it work, each patient must go through an intensive rehabilitation program to learn to interpret these signals and start reading again.
However, in a recent trial, 84% of participants were able to read letters, numbers and words using prosthetic vision. Before the study, each of the 38 patients had completely lost their sight due to a specific untreatable progressive eye condition, geographic atrophy with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It causes the breakdown and death of cells in the retina that leads to progressive, irreversible central vision loss. There is currently no treatment for geographic atrophy, which affects some 5 million people globally.
After the trial’s success, the path looks a little clearer for potential market approval of the revolutionary Prima device.
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Image of the chip in a patient’s eye.Science Corporation
