👁️ How Neuralink Will Cure Blindness | Blindsight Breakthrough 🌐 | AI Revolution - video Dailymotion

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Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company 🧠💻, is working on revolutionary technology that could restore vision to the blind, even in people born without sight 👁️❌. This isn’t science fiction—it's becoming science fact.  Using ultra-thin electrodes implanted in the brain’s visual cortex, Neuralink aims to bypass damaged eyes and optic nerves entirely, delivering visual information directly to the brain. This means that even people with total blindness could experience Blindsight—the brain interpreting artificial signals as visual perception 🌈✨.  In future versions, the system could stream digital images captured by external cameras in real-time, allowing users to "see" their surroundings in entirely new ways 📸➡️🧠. Combined with AI, it could even enhance vision beyond normal human limits.  This technology has the potential to transform millions of lives, giving independence and freedom to those living without sight. Neuralink’s mission is bold, but the impact could be nothing short of miraculous.  #Neuralink #ElonMusk #CureBlindness #Blindsight #BCI #BrainComputerInterface #Neurotech #VisualCortex #FutureMedicine #TechForGood #RestoreVision #BlindTech #MedicalInnovation #ArtificialVision #AIinMedicine #NeuralImplants #FutureOfHealth #BioTech #SightRestoration #VisionRevolution

Transcript

00:00Imagine using technology to restore eyesight to the blind.

00:05Elon Musk's Neuralink Brain Implant Company believes that they can do it, and to a lot

00:10of people that might sound like biblical grandstanding, but there is good scientific evidence that

00:16says digital sight may be a very real possibility.

00:22And this is how Neuralink Brain Implants will cure blindness.

00:30The first trick is understanding what vision even is.

00:35There are certain aspects of human eyesight that are well understood, but overall, we

00:39really don't know how this works.

00:42Light as we commonly know it is essentially just electromagnetic radiation that exists

00:47within our visible wavelengths.

00:50That radiation is contained inside energetic particles called photons.

00:54These photons have no mass, no electrical charge, and they are in a constant state of motion,

01:00hence the speed of light.

01:02Photons of light enter your eyeball and are focused by a lens onto a layer of tissue near

01:07the back of the eye.

01:09That is your retina.

01:11It's made of special cells called photoreceptors, and they can transform electromagnetic energy

01:16into electrical signal.

01:18That signal flows through the optic nerve and into the visual cortex of the brain, at which

01:23point billions of neurons inside the brain translate the electrical signal into everything

01:29that you can see.

01:30We know that the neural network processes visual information in layers.

01:34There are basic, low-level processing layers for things like edge detection, identifying curves,

01:40recognizing objects.

01:42But when we get to higher levels of processing, like color encoding, no one really knows what's

01:48going on in there.

01:49When a person loses their ability to see, it's almost always a problem associated with the

01:54eye or the optic nerve, not the visual cortex.

01:58So the majority of our treatments right now are focused on regenerating that physical tissue.

02:03In most scenarios, that doesn't work.

02:07But this also means that it's just the input device that isn't working.

02:11The processing system is still intact, so in theory, we can plug electrical signals straight

02:17into the visual cortex and create vision in the same way as the eye and the optic nerve.

02:23This does sound crazy, but it has been done before.

02:27Actually the first experiments with stimulating vision through electrical signals date back

02:32all the way to the late 1920s.

02:35In order to understand this, we need to learn a new word first, photosphene.

02:40This is a phenomenon where you see light in your visual field without any light entering

02:44your eye.

02:45Do you ever see stars with your eyes closed?

02:47Do you see patterns of light when you rub your eyes?

02:51These are photosphenes that you are seeing.

02:54Photosphenes can be induced by mechanical, electrical, or magnetic stimulation of either the retina

02:59or the visual cortex.

03:01So you'll see them if you take a blow to the head, but you'll also see them if you get

03:05an electrical shock in the right portion of your brain.

03:09This was first confirmed by the famous neurologist Otfred Forrester in 1929.

03:15Decades later, in 1968, two scientists at the University of Cambridge refined the procedure

03:21by connecting electrodes into the brain of a 52-year-old blind patient and wiring them

03:26to an array of radio devices.

03:28When certain radio signals were transmitted into the brain, the patient experienced sensations

03:34of light.

03:35When just one electrode was stimulated, the patient would see a single, very small spot

03:40of white light in a consistent location.

03:43This is the photosphene.

03:45And it was found that as long as the electrodes were spaced more than two millimeters apart,

03:50the resulting photosphenes can be easily distinguished from each other.

03:53So by stimulating multiple electrodes at once, the patient would be caused to see patterns

03:59of light.

04:00This experiment was repeated in 1974 at the University of Utah.

04:05They placed a rectangular grid of electrodes into the visual cortex, four across by three

04:10deep, and then they used these electrodes to project patterns of braille dots into the

04:14patient's vision, creating a very primitive, yet effective visual prosthetic, the first

04:20of its kind.

04:21Now of course, opening up a person's skull and sticking wires into their brain just to

04:25show them braille letters isn't really helping anyone, but it is a solid foundation to build

04:31on.

04:32We know that Neuralink is working on an application called Blindsight.

04:36The companies follow up to their current app, Telepathy.

04:39Telepathy is all about output.

04:41Neuralink electrodes detect activity spikes from within the brain and convert those to

04:45digital signals that are transmitted wirelessly into a computer, so all that the user has

04:50to do is think about moving a cursor on a screen, and telepathy will make it happen.

04:56Now Blindsight becomes about input.

04:59Neuralink has to use the electrodes to inject electrical signals into the brain to stimulate

05:04the neurons and produce the photosphene effect.

05:07This would start with a digital camera, like a GoPro strapped to a person's head or

05:11something like those Ray-Ban smart glasses.

05:13These devices are already purpose-built for converting photons into electrical signal just

05:18like the retina.

05:20Then the Neuralink device can take the place of the optic nerve, transmitting the electrical

05:24signals directly into the neural networks of the visual cortex and stimulating the photosphene

05:29to create a visual representation of what the camera is seeing.

05:33The idea is that the smaller the electrode, the smaller the photosphene that the patient will

05:38see, so instead of seeing a big dot in their vision, the Neuralink user might see something

05:43more like a pixel on a display.

05:45Using Neuralink's R1 robot, these electrodes can be placed into a highly accurate grid on

05:50the visual cortex, just like the old experiment from the 70s, but with orders of magnitude higher

05:56resolution.

05:57Now that's not going to instantly create any kind of photorealistic image, but the Neuralink

06:02user will most likely see is something like an old Atari video game.

06:06It won't be particularly useful for seeing details, but it might be good enough for a

06:10person to see edges and large objects so that they don't bump into stuff.

06:15More resolution in the Neuralink image would require more electrodes.

06:19Neuralink is currently maxed out at around 1,000, but they are hoping to reach 3,000 or

06:24even 6,000 in the near term and as many as 16,000 electrode channels within the next year

06:30or two.

06:31But it's the amount of bandwidth going through the device that is the big limiting factor

06:35right now.

06:37We all know what happens to a computer when it starts working too hard.

06:41It gets hot, and you don't want a computer implanted in your skull to start getting hot.

06:47So the efficiency of the computer chip and the performances of the battery play important

06:51roles as well.

06:53Also, to give a person full panoramic vision, they would need to have two Neuralink implants,

06:58one on each hemisphere of the brain.

07:00Vision from your right eye is processed in the left side of the brain and vice versa.

07:05To make things even stranger, the image projected onto your retina by the lens in your eyeball

07:09is actually cast upside down.

07:12Your brain doesn't flip the image because it doesn't receive a projected image, just a series

07:16of nerve impulses that it decodes in such a way that everything is perceived correctly.

07:21Actually, the whole process of seeing things the right way up is pretty strange.

07:26If you tilt your head over 90 degrees, your perception of the world doesn't tilt.

07:30You still know up and down, even when you're sideways.

07:34This is the kind of stuff that still needs to get figured out, and that's going to take

07:37a lot of trial and error before we even begin to get things right.

07:42It won't be an easy process, don't be expecting a Neuralink to replace virtual reality or augmented

07:47reality headsets anytime soon.

07:50But there is potential for computer-enhanced vision to go far beyond the human eye at some

07:55point in the future, and this would be long in the future, but in theory, we can go way

08:00beyond just projecting a movie into your head.

08:03What we know as light is simply electromagnetic radiation that exists within our visual spectrum

08:09of wavelengths, but there is light that exists in higher wavelengths than what we can see.

08:15That's ultraviolet light, and there is light that exists in much longer wavelengths as well.

08:20That's infrared.

08:22We can't see this radiation, but we know it exists, and we can easily create digital image

08:27sensors that can read this light for us and convert it into a visible spectrum.

08:32Now if we go back to that idea of strapping a GoPro to a person's head and replace that with

08:37an infrared camera or an ultraviolet light detector, now we've just unlocked a whole new way for

08:43a person to perceive the world.

08:45We can go way beyond our conscious experience, deeper into the nature of the universe and

08:50existence, like taking a high-powered psychedelic drug without any of the weird side effects.

08:57Anyway, coming back around to real life, can Neuralink restore sight to the blind?

09:01Yes, but not in the sense of flicking a switch and turning your eyes back on, but more in the sense

09:07of being able to restore a very rudimentary visual perception of the outside world, like

09:12living inside your own low-res monochrome video game.

09:15But as the device capability improves over time, a long time, resolution will improve as well.

09:22As for those higher level functions, would you ever see colors? Could you look around in every

09:27direction you want? Can you tilt your head and still know which way is up? Well, these are secrets

09:33that still need to be revealed.

👁️ How Neuralink Will Cure Blindness | Blindsight Breakthrough 🌐 | AI Revolution

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