ELVIS V

The possibility of restoring vision in totally blind people has historically been perceived as an area on the verge of fiction, since there were no such elegant technologies that could not only do no harm, but also give a useful effect. In this field, attempts have been made to electrostimulate at all structural levels of the visual system (prosthetics), attempts to "transform" neurons for light perception, turning them into a kind of photoreceptors (optogenetics), attempts to control cellular mechanisms that disrupt the visual process (genetics), attempts to transplant their own functional tissues, as well as grow new ones from stem cells and increment them, replacing defects (transplantation). Today, in the world literature, it is already possible to find descriptions of variable successes in all these areas, which in one way or another are able to give hope to a blind person to see the world again. The research path is not completed. The ELVIS V cortical vision prosthetics project is the result of long-term research from various angles, thanks to which in 2018 it became clear that technology had reached a level at which it was possible to create a neuroimplant capable of safely stimulating the visual cortex and causing visual sensations in humans. Sensations from which meanings can be born. In 2019, a research project codenamed "ELVIS V" was launched, the purpose of which was to create a neuroimplant to restore vision in order to restore the ability to see at least 20 million people around the world (according to statistics, there are more than 41 million totally blind people in the world), and even when there are no eyes at all.