Let's dive into the details. For any unresolved questions, feel free to contact us.
Because the system bypasses the eye and the optical nerve completely and directly works on the primary visual cortex of the brain, it will work in about 95% of cases. The only exceptions are blindess due to a tumor or haemorrage in the visual cortex itself, and blindness contracted from birth as then the visual cortex does not develop normally. In the latter case, implanting the child before the age of 5 would still allow the system to function. In that case, the performance will most probably even be superior to the performance experienced by adult recipients of the implant, as the brain's plasticity (its ability to adapt) is higher at young age.
Our system is designed to interact with a large volume of brain tissue, more particularly the whole primary visual cortex. This is what you need for a visual prosthesis. Neuralink's system is optimised to extract a lot of data from a smaller volume of the brain, which makes it more suitable for applications such as controlling a computer with your thoughts. Also, our insertion system does not require robot-assisted surgery, so it can be deployed in any hospital without a large investment.
We are currently performing tests of the high-electrode count arrays on rhesus monkeys, sheep and mice. The results are very encouraging, thank you. Several further improvements of the arrays are underway while we are also preparing the next phase of the project: the development of the complete prosthesis.
