One of them, called Argus II, was approved for commercial use in Europe in 2011 and in the United States in 2013. The implant contained large electrodes that were placed on top of the retina. Its manufacturer, Second Sight, discontinued production of the device in 2020 due to financial difficulties. Neuralink and several other companies, on the other hand, aim to bypass the eyes entirely and stimulate the brain’s visual cortex instead.
What differentiates Prima from other retinal implants, Hodak said, is its ability to provide “shape vision,” or the recognition of object shapes, patterns, and other visual elements. However, what the user sees is not “normal” vision. First, they don’t see color. Rather, you will see a yellowish processed image.
The trial enrolled people with geographic atrophy, a progressive form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) that causes gradual loss of central vision. People with this condition still have peripheral vision but have a blind spot in their central vision, making it difficult to read, recognize faces, or see in low light.
In AMD, special cells called photoreceptors become damaged over time. Photoreceptors, located at the back of the retina, convert light into signals and send them to the brain. “The photoreceptors are lost, but the retina is preserved to a large extent. In our approach, the implant replaces the photoreceptors,” says Daniel, a professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University who invented the Prima implant.・Mr. Palankar says.
