Overview
- UMH and CIBER-BBN implanted a 100‑microelectrode array in primary visual cortex to elicit artificial phosphenes during a safety and feasibility study.
- Two days after surgery the participant reported a first natural percept described as a moving shadow and could locate researchers by arm position.
- Over months of daily visual training, the patient gained measurable acuity and could identify objects and letters, with improvements persisting after implant removal.
- Visual evoked potentials that were nearly absent before the study reappeared and strengthened, indicating a real physiological recovery.
- The team stresses this is a single, unexpected case requiring replication; the peer-reviewed report appears in Brain Communications with support from Hospital IMED Elche and public funders in Spain and the EU.