Glasses and Chip Merge to Restore Lost Vision

Metaverse Planet November 5, 2025Last Updated: November 5, 2025

2 minutes read

A report published in The New England Journal of Medicine focused on the PRIMA implant, which restored vision in patients with dry Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). The system uses AI support to capture images and project them as near-infrared light onto the implant; however, the resulting images are currently only in black and white.

A new beacon of hope has emerged for patients suffering from Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), an untreatable cause of vision loss affecting approximately 200 million people over the age of 50 worldwide. A new study concerning the over 5 million individuals battling Geographic Atrophy (GA), the advanced form of the disease that leads to vision loss, promises a small retinal implant with the potential to restore sight.

According to the report published in The New England Journal of Medicine, this system, called Photovoltaic Retinal Implant Micro-array (PRIMA), provided clinically significant improvements in patients suffering from GA. In individuals with dry AMD, the macula (responsible for detailed color vision in the retina) begins to thin. Scientists aimed to restore sight by implanting a light-sensitive device, based on the premise that these patients retain some of their photoreceptors.

The PRIMA system operates with a 2 mm subretinal photovoltaic chip surgically placed in the eye. This chip is complemented by augmented reality glasses connected to a controller worn on the belt. The glasses capture the images the person is looking at and project them onto the implant as near-infrared light. The chip receives these signals, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) uses this data to convert them into images readable by the brain.

Promising, but Areas Need Improvement

The results of the study are quite encouraging. The PRIMA implant was fitted to 38 participants, and approximately 80% of those evaluated at the 12-month mark showed a clinically significant improvement. However, researchers note that the “intensive vision training” the patients received might also have contributed to these improvement rates.

In its current state, the images seen by users whose vision was restored by the implant are in black and white. This highlights a crucial aspect of the technology that requires further development. The co-leads of the study aim to increase visual acuity by adding to or improving the software behind the technology in the future. The goal is to help patients “resolve grayscale and improve their face recognition skills.”

Experts do not believe that full 20/20 visual acuity can be restored with the implant alone. However, they are actively working on different “tricks” and methods that could enable vision above the threshold of legal blindness.