Scientists invent a neural brain implant that enables blind people to recognize objects and texts

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A team of scientists at the Russian "Skolkovo" Center for Innovations has created a neural implant that is implanted in the brain of blind people so that they can recognize objects and read texts.

Denis Kuleshov, Director General of the Sensor-Tech Laboratory of the Russian "Skolkovo" Center for Innovations, said that the Russian-made neural implant will help the blind to recognize objects and read texts.

He added: “The main advantage of our system is that the image is processed by artificial intelligence algorithms that divide the image depicted by the camera into parts. The algorithms also extract important information only from the surrounding space, and there may be, for example, outlines of objects, bodies, and windows.” Entrances, doors, etc. These features are sent only in the form of electrical impulses to the visual cortex of the blind person’s brain. There is also another level of algorithms that tell the blind person in real time about the objects in front of him using computer vision, because electronic vision is not enough, for example. For example, to read a book quietly and the second-level AI algorithm recognizes the text and lists the contents of the page.”

Kuleshov pointed out that no country in the world currently has a “licensed nerve implant” used to restore sight.

The head of the laboratory said: “Our ELVIS V project is competing to own the rights to the first licensed neural implant that can be implanted en masse in the brains of blind people.”

It is noteworthy that the ELVIS V system, which was created by specialists from the Sensor-Tech laboratory, consists of a camera that captures the surrounding image, a wireless transmitter that sends stimulation commands to a chip mounted on the patient’s head, and a small computer that processes the image received from the camera using smart algorithms. A neural implant is implanted in the human brain to stimulate the visual cortex with weak electrical currents.