Mindtrix to Launch China's First IIT Clinical Trial of Visual Restoration BCI in Totally Blind Patients

For blind patients, “seeing” signifies not only the restoration of sensory perception but also the capacity for independent action and the preservation of personal dignity. However, conventional therapeutic approaches, such as pharmacological treatments and artificial retinas, largely depend on intact ocular structures and functional optic nerves. For patients who have undergone enucleation or suffer from severe optic nerve damage, existing medical interventions offer little to no efficacy.

Today, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) hold promise for breaking the deadlock by bypassing damaged eyes and directly “writing” visual information into the brain. Over the past year, Mindtrix, a globally leading startup in vision-restoration BCIs, has achieved successive breakthroughs in the artificial induction of complex patterns, color, and even grayscale vision, setting multiple global firsts and becoming the first company in China to complete human validation of a vision-restoration BCI.

Currently, Mindtrix has settled into the Sinan Brain-Computer Intelligence Super Incubator within the Shanghai Future Industry Cluster for Brain-Computer Interfaces. This year, the company plans to launch the first Investigator-Initiated Trial (IIT) in China for brain-computer interface-based visual restoration in completely blind patients, striving to bring its product to market around 2030.

Previously, only a handful of companies worldwide, such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink, had ventured into the field of visual restoration, and even fewer teams dared to tackle the “hard nut” of visual cortex stimulation. Mindtrix’s steady yet rapid progress is poised to accelerate the clinical application and industrialization of this disruptive innovation, heralding a dawn for restoring sight in the blind.

Brain-Computer Interface’s “Most Challenging Frontier” Sees Consecutive Global Firsts

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) widely known to the public are predominantly designed to “read” brain signals for controlling external devices. However, Zhang Li, co-founder and chief scientist at Mindtrix, considers BCIs that can only “read” but not “write” to be incomplete. “Writing” refers to inputting information into the brain via electrical stimulation to restore sensory perception. Visual reconstruction imposes extremely high precision requirements on algorithms and chips, and is regarded as the “Mount Everest” of the BCI field.

Over the past decade, traditional retinal stimulation pathways have gradually encountered bottlenecks due to their inability to serve a large population of blind patients with diverse underlying pathologies. Mindtrix has chosen to bypass the damaged eyeball and optic nerve, directly stimulating the visual cortex of the brain. This approach utilizes smart glasses to capture external images, processes visual encoding via an external processor, and wirelessly transmits the data to an electrode array implanted in the brain, thereby "lighting up" phosphenes in the visual cortex through electrical stimulation.

Last year, Mindtrix collaborated with the team led by Hu Feng, Director of the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Research Ward at Tongji Hospital, affiliated with Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, to complete the world’s first investigator-initiated trial (IIT) of visual reconstruction involving complex shapes superimposed with multiple colors in epilepsy patients who had electrodes implanted for therapeutic purposes. Hu Feng introduced that under multi-channel synchronous stimulation, the subjects could not only stably perceive the positions of phosphenes but also distinguish basic colors such as red, green, and blue, and connect multiple phosphenes into recognizable shapes.

Earlier this year, the team achieved the world’s first grayscale visual reconstruction. By adjusting stimulation parameters, subjects were able to perceive continuous variations from deep black to bright white. “Grayscale indicates that the system has begun to acquire the capability to represent shadows, layers, and spatial depth,” said Zhang Li. If patients can stably regain grayscale perception, it will significantly enhance their practical daily living skills, such as object recognition and navigation with obstacle avoidance.

However, to enable blind individuals to truly “see the world,” the industry still needs to overcome a core threshold: the number of channels, which can be understood as the “pixels” of an artificial visual system. For instance, 16 channels correspond to a 4×4 pixel resolution, allowing only the perception of blurry color blocks. The higher the channel count, the richer the visual information, thereby enabling the gradual discrimination of contours, objects, and even clearer details.

However, stimulation chips with higher channel counts entail greater power consumption, imposing stricter requirements on charging efficiency and posing challenges for thermal management of the implant, thereby testing the long-term stability of the system. Zhang Li stated that achieving the desired ultimate outcomes requires further development of more complex electrode implantation strategies. These challenges also offer significant potential for subsequent technological breakthroughs and product innovation.

No Leapfrog Ambitions, Just Meeting the Essential Daily Needs of the Blind

After engaging with the visually impaired community, Liu Bing, Co-founder and CEO of Mindtrix, discovered that many patients, particularly those who acquired blindness later in life, are less concerned with “whether they can immediately regain full vision” and more focused on “whether they can reintegrate into normal daily life.” “Even being able to perceive only direction and contours holds profound significance for them.”

Therefore, the team does not aspire to achieve a breakthrough overnight; instead, it aims to first develop a safe and reliable system that provides basic visual functions to help blind patients live independently. The ultimate goal is to restore visual acuity to a level of 0.3–0.5, thereby meeting their essential daily needs, such as climbing stairs, crossing streets, and reading street signs.

However, achieving this goal involves challenges far beyond merely increasing the number of channels. Brain-computer interfaces are not about isolated breakthroughs; they require deep interdisciplinary integration with fields such as artificial intelligence and clinical medicine. ▼ Continued on Page 5 (Continued from Page 1)

It was previously believed that there was a “critical period” for visual development, making it difficult to improve vision after the age of six or seven. However, current research indicates that human neuroplasticity in the visual system is robust. Even individuals who have been blind for many years due to acquired causes, and even some with congenital blindness, may establish effective artificial vision through brain-computer interface (BCI) stimulation and long-term training. This suggests that BCI technology does more than simply “transmit images back to the brain”; it also helps the brain relearn how to “see.”

To this end, Mindtrix has proposed a "bidirectional brain-machine learning" mechanism. First, "machine learns brain": algorithms continuously monitor changes in neural activity and adjust stimulation frequency, intensity, and electrode combinations in real time to adapt to the brain states of different individuals. Second, "brain learns machine": through repeated training and feedback, the patient’s brain gradually interprets artificial visual signals and establishes stable perceptual mappings. Through continuous mutual adaptation, the two systems ultimately achieve synergy, resulting in enhanced functional capabilities.

Founded Less Than Two Years Ago, Secures 150 Million Yuan in Angel Funding

From the perspective of industry players and investment institutions, brain-computer interface (BCI)-based visual restoration is a field that is “still in its early stages but must be entered now.” This is not because it is easy to achieve, but because it represents an absolute critical need for blind patients.

More than 80% of external information acquired by humans comes from vision. Globally, there are approximately 43 million individuals with complete blindness, including over 8 million in China, with about 450,000 new cases emerging annually. Driven by substantial unmet clinical needs, visual reconstruction has been established as the primary strategic focal point in the field of brain-computer interface (BCI)-based sensory restoration, characterized by well-defined clinical endpoints, a clear technological pathway, and significant social value. Recently, the compilation of the "Chinese Expert Consensus on Clinical Research of Implantable Brain-Computer Interfaces for Visual Reconstruction" was initiated in Shanghai.

Founded less than two years ago, Mindtrix has successfully completed its angel, angel+, and angel++ funding rounds, raising a total of RMB 150 million. According to CAS Star, the lead investor, existing medical solutions such as retinal prostheses only address some causes of vision loss and have limited efficacy. With its proprietary technology and rapid clinical progress, Mindtrix is poised to become a global leader in this field.

It is reported that Mindtrix plans to conduct China’s first investigator-initiated trial (IIT) involving fully blind patients within the year and complete the development of an engineering prototype equipped with its self-developed 1,024-channel chip. Next year, the company will advance large-scale animal experiments, as well as type testing of electrodes, chips, and stimulation systems, aiming to launch the product around 2030. Liu Bing stated that the company will accelerate collaboration with clinical institutions in Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities to ensure the technology benefits patients as soon as possible.

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