Russian Scientists Install Brain Implant For Restoring Vision In Monkey - University

Russian scientists and doctors have installed in a monkey's brain a neural implant designed to restore vision through transmitting images directly into the brain with special equipment, the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2022) Russian scientists and doctors have installed in a monkey's brain a neural implant designed to restore vision through transmitting images directly into the brain with special equipment, the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) said on Wednesday.

"FEFU Medical Center neurosurgeon Artur Biktimirov has successfully performed a two-hour surgery to put the ELVIS brain implant into a monkey. This is another very significant step in the fulfillment of a project aimed at returning sight to blind and deaf-blind people and enter the final stage of preclinical trials," the university said in a statement, adding that Biktimirov was assisted by a team of anesthesiologists, veterinarians and neurophysiologists.

The test subject is a six-year-old male baboon, who is recovering well.

The operation took place at the Research Institute of Medical Primatology in the southern Russian city of Sochi.

Its goal was to see if the device was operational and evaluate compatibility of the implant and brain tissues. The FEFU expects such surgery to become available in 2027.

According to the head of the Moscow Center for Innovative Technologies in Health Care, Vyacheslav Shulenin, about 300,000 people in Russia are blind and the neural implant could return sight to at least 20% of them.

"We are ready to support our colleagues' innovation in Moscow. We are ready to offer the city's medical facilities and help from Moscow doctors to the developers at the clinical trial stage," Shulenin said.

The researchers are planning to install ELVIS in dozens of monkeys and conduct a series of behavioral experiments within the next two years.