Bionic Vision Lab

New in Neuron 👁️🧠🧪: Can AI help a cortical visual prosthesis control what the brain actually does after electrical stimulation? We used a bidirectional implant to model and shape stimulation-evoked activity in human visual cortex. doi.org/10.1016/j.ne... #UCSB #AI #BionicVision #Neurotechnology

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

🎉 Our paper won a Best Paper Award at #ISMAR2026! Huge congrats to co-first authors Apurv Varshney and Lily Turkstra, and the whole team. Only 8 of 754 submissions received the award: top 1.1%. Here’s what we found 🧵

ucnoyce.orgUC Noyce Initiative Names Inaugural Class of Graduate Student FellowsFive exceptional graduate students from across the University of California have been named the inaugural UC Noyce Graduate Student Fellows, launching a new program designed to support the next…

27 Aug

Exciting news from the lab: Emily Joyce has been named an inaugural UC Noyce Graduate Student Fellow, 1 of just 5 selected across the UC system. Her project asks a deceptively hard question: retinal implants can produce color, but can we predict and control it? ucnoyce.org/news/uc-noyc...

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

UCSB Computer Science Department

@ucsb-cs.bsky.social

10 Aug

A new study in Neuron, co-first authored by @jacobgranley.bsky.social from @bionicvisionlab.org, with @ethz.ch and @umh.es, is using AI to design smarter, more accurate stimulation for blind patients. www.cs.ucsb.edu/happenings/a... @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social #ComputerScience #Neurotech

news.ucsb.eduDeep learning refines how bionic eyes communicate with the brainUCSB associate professor of computer science Michael Beyeler and his colleagues used a deep-learning model to design patterns of electrical stimulation for electrodes temporarily implanted in the visu...

9 Aug

#UCSB news release: Deep learning refines how bionic eyes communicate with the brain news.ucsb.edu/2026/022739/...

Finally, the neural response mattered for perception. Recorded population activity predicted whether a phosphene was seen, and its brightness and color, substantially better than stimulation parameters alone. The emerging picture: stimulation → neural response → perception #BCI #Neuroscience

Huge thanks to Pehuén Moure, @jacobgranley.bsky.social, Fabrizio Grani, Leili Soo, @lozaneuro.bsky.social, Shih-Chii Liu, Eduardo Fernández, and #NIH. Above all, thank you to the blind volunteer who made this work possible!

Prediction is useful. Control is the harder problem. Given a desired neural response, we used either gradient optimization or an inverse neural network to find a stimulation pattern predicted to produce it, then tested those patterns in vivo. Both beat conventional approaches.

But not every neural response is equally achievable... Evoked activity occupied a low-dimensional neural manifold. Targets farther from that manifold were much harder to reproduce (r = 0.85). The optimized methods also achieved their targets using lower stimulation currents.

First problem: the same electrical stimulation does not always produce the same neural response. Responses were much more variable across days than within a day, motivating a model that accounts for the brain’s ongoing state rather than treating stimulation as a fixed input-output mapping.

So we trained a deep forward model to predict the population response to multielectrode stimulation. On held-out days, it outperformed 1-to-1, linear, nonlinear, and dictionary-based models across multiple measures of prediction accuracy.

bionicvisionlab.orgNetwork-adaptive cloud preprocessing for visual neuroprostheses | Bionic Vision LabWe present a network-adaptive pipeline for cloud-assisted visual preprocessing of artificial vision, where real-time round-trip-time (RTT) feedback is used to dynamically modulate image resolution, co...

27 July

At #IEEE #EMBC 2026? Come check out our presentations: Tu.1.8.2: NETWORK-ADAPTIVE CLOUD PROCESSING FOR VISUAL NEUROPROSTHESES bionicvisionlab.org/publications... Tuesday, 28 July, 08:30 - 10:00 Room 718A

bionicvisionlab.orgSymbolSight: Minimizing inter-symbol interference for reading with prosthetic vision | Bionic Vision LabWe present SymbolSight, a computational framework that selects symbol-to-letter mappings to minimize confusion among frequently adjacent letters. Using simulated prosthetic vision (SPV) and a neural p...

27 July

#IEEE #EMBC 2026: We.1.7.5: SYMBOLSIGHT: MINIMIZING INTER-SYMBOL INTERFERENCE FOR READING WITH PROSTHETIC VISION bionicvisionlab.org/publications... Wednesday, 29 July, 08:30 - 10:00 Room 714A

engineering.ucsb.eduA Smarter Way to See Danger | The Robert Mehrabian College of Engineering - UC Santa Barbara.

24 July

Congratulations to Bionic Vision Lab postdoc @mariusschneider.bsky.social on receiving the 2026–27 UCSB Zaleski Discovery Award! His project explores event-based, neuromorphic safety technology for blind and low-vision travelers.

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

science.xyzScience Corp. Announces European Commercial Launch of PRIMA, the Only Treatment to Restore Functional Central Vision to Patients with Geographic Atrophy Caused by Age-Related Macular Degeneration, a L...Science Corporation is a clinical-stage medical technology company.

22 July

@science.xyz has announced the European commercial launch of PRIMA, following CE marking under the EU Medical Device Regulation. 👁️🧠🧪 This marks a significant milestone for the bionic vision field after years of clinical development. science.xyz/news/ce-mark/ #BionicVision #NeuroTech #BCI

science.ucsb.eduAt county science fair, UC Santa Barbara mentors help young researchers see what’s possible | Division of Mathematical, Life and Physical SciencesLocal middle and high school students explored microscopy, virtual reality and bionic vision research through hands-on lab experiences with campus scientists.

23 May

What might #BionicVision actually look like? 👁️🧪 At the #SantaBarbara County Science Fair, high school students found out firsthand with our BionicVisionXR open-source VR simulator, built to study what how bionic eyes might restore real-world function. science.ucsb.edu/news/county-... #UCSB #STEM

5 May

At #ARVO2026? Come find Poster #0523 • 10:15am - 12:00pm MT • May 6th We asked 100+ legally #blind adults: What shapes your attitude toward #BionicVision? • usefulness helped • barriers hurt • ease of use mattered, but less • age & vision level were not predictive eppro02.ativ.me/web/page.php...

3 May

At #ARVO2026? Come find Poster #0978 • 8:30 - 10:15am MT • May 5th Argus II timing breaks sighted flicker-fusion assumptions: • temporal effect: fragmented percepts at 0 ms, cleaner 1-vs-2 percepts at 4+ ms • spatial effect: axon-map distance predicts separability eppro02.ativ.me/web/page.php...

1 May

Two #BionicVision studies 👁️🧠 from our lab at #ARVO2026: 1. Argus II timing breaks sighted flicker-fusion assumptions: May 5, 8:30–10:15 AM 2. What shapes blind adults’ attitudes toward vision-restoration technology: May 6, 10:15 AM–12:00 PM Come find us in Denver!

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

bionic-vision.orgbionic-vision.org | People | Giles S. Brindley, MDFRSGiles Skey Brindley FRS (b. 1926) is a British physiologist whose audacious experiments and engineering brilliance helped launch modern visual prosthetics, neuro-urology, and the science of color…

30 Apr

April 30 marks 100 years of Giles S. Brindley FRS. Pioneer of cortical implants & #BionicVision. 🧠⚡ Architect of modern erectile dysfunction therapy. Gave the most notorious live demo in scientific history. A century of impact. www.bionic-vision.org/people/giles... #Neuroscience #NeuroTech

18 Apr

Excited to share that two papers from the lab were accepted to #IEEE #EMBC2026 (@embs.org)! 🎉 1. Better symbol design for reading with (future) prosthetic vision 2. Cloud-adaptive preprocessing for visual neuroprostheses under real-world network constraints #BionicVision #NeuroTech

18 Apr

Jasmine Lesner asked: in a future implant that supports reading, can we redesign the symbols themselves to make them easier to tell apart through a highly constrained visual channel? SymbolSight optimizes the symbol set, not the HW. bionicvisionlab.org/publications... #EMBC2026 #BionicVision

18 Apr

Jiayi Liu and Yilin Wang asked: if future prosthetic vision systems use #cloud-based #AI, can they remain usable when latency, jitter, and bandwidth fluctuate? This paper studies real-time adaptation under network constraints. bionicvisionlab.org/publications... #EMBC2026 #BionicVision

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

11 Mar

En route to #Cosyne2026! 🧠🧪🇵🇹 @bionicvisionlab.org is represented with 2 projects: - control of electrically evoked activity in human V1 - predictive model of mouse V1 recovers cell- and state-dependent tuning Check out our posters on Thursday! #CompNeuroSky #NeuroSkyence

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

massdevice.comReVision Implant wins FDA breakthrough nod for vision-restoring BCIReVision Implant announced today that it received FDA breakthrough device designation for its Occular visual cortical prosthesis.

10 Mar

ReVision Implant receives FDA breakthrough device designation for its Occular visual cortical prosthesis www.massdevice.com/revision-imp... #BionicVision #BCI #NeuroTech

bionicvisionlab.orgFuzzing the brain: Automated stress testing for the safety of ML-driven neurostimulation | Bionic Vision LabWe propose a systematic, quantitative approach to detect and characterize unsafe stimulation patterns in ML-driven neurostimulation systems.

5 Mar

🚨Fuzzing the brain - automated stress testing for ML-driven neurostimulation🚨 As #MachineLearning begins to control electrical stimulation in neural interfaces, how do we know these models are safe? Paper in Journal of Neural Engineering: bionicvisionlab.org/publications... #BCI #neuroskyence

Our approach borrows an idea from software verification: coverage-guided fuzzing. We systematically mutate inputs and search for stimulation patterns that violate biophysical constraints - uncovering diverse safety violations that conventional testing misses. #Neurotech #MLResearch #AIVerification

iopscience.iop.orgFuzzing the brain: automated stress testing for the safety of ML-driven neurostimulationFuzzing the brain: automated stress testing for the safety of ML-driven neurostimulation, Downing, Mara, Peng, Matthew, Granley, Jacob, Beyeler, Michael, Bultan, Tevfik

5 Mar

This work was a collaboration with Mara Downing, Matthew Peng, and Tevfik Bultan from the UCSB Verification Lab, together with @jacobgranley.bsky.social from the Bionic Vision Lab. Read the full paper here: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... @ucsb-cs.bsky.social

Most prior work treats safety narrowly, often by minimizing charge. But unsafe stimulation can take many forms: • physically impossible pulses • unsafe instantaneous currents • activating too many electrodes These are model outputs, so they need to be tested like software systems. #AISafety

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

arxiv.orgBIRD: Behavior Induction via Representation-structure DistillationHuman-aligned deep learning models exhibit behaviors consistent with human values, such as robustness, fairness, and honesty. Transferring these behavioral properties to models trained on different ta...

8 Feb

What if your strongest #ML model is brittle at one thing that really matters? Can it learn that behavior from a weaker but specialist model, even when they share no task, no data, and no architecture? My student Galen Pogoncheff explored this in our #ICLR2026 paper: 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2505.23933

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

@bioniclab.bsky.social

15 Jan

Just out in @nature.com BME: Our Review unpacks intracortical microstimulation: axons, not somas, drive activation; direct + indirect pathways shape perception; parameters interact with neuron type, layer, and network; long-term use limited by neural depression & tissue response. 🧠⚡ rdcu.be/eZbTz

rdcu.beNeural mechanisms underlying intracortical microstimulation for sensory restorationNature Biomedical Engineering - Intracortical microstimulation can elicit artificial sensations in persons who have lost sensation due to neurological injury or disease. This Review discusses...

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

robustforaging.github.ioRobust Foraging CompetitionCan your AI visually navigate better than a mouse?

26 Nov 2025

🎉 Mouse vs AI #NeurIPS2025 Challenge 2025 The first year was a great success: 🤖 290 submissions 👥 22 teams 🌎 7 countries robustforaging.github.io A huge thank you to all who participated!👏 This was our first attempt at a global competition built around real mouse behavior and visual robustness

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

Antonio Lozano

@lozaneuro.bsky.social

19 Nov 2025

Presenting “Human in the loop optimisation for efficient intracortical microstimulation temporal patterns in visual cortex” again this afternoon at #SfN!! Come discuss! An amazing collaboration between the Biomedical Neuroengineering group at UMH and @bionicvisionlab.org

16 Nov 2025

If you are into #VisionScience or #neuroengineering, come check out our first poster at #SfN2025 this afternoon! Emily Joyce is presenting new work on modeling the bipolar circuitry in the human fovea PSTR122.22 Nov 16 at 1:00 PM www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/21171...

Lily Turkstra is presenting new findings on stimulus-selective spiking activity recorded during a working memory experiment in a unique intracortical dataset. PSTR341.13 Nov 18 at 1:00 PM www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/21171... #SfN25 #VisionScience #Neuroscience

16 Nov 2025

Our final poster at #SfN2025 explores human-in-the-loop optimization for intracortical microstimulation, presented by @lozaneuro.bsky.social, in collaboration with @umh.es: PSTR450.20 Nov 19 at 1:00 PM www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/21171... #SfN25 #VisionScience #NeuroTechnology

Our second poster at #SfN2025 dives into biologically plausible networks for efficient image encoding, presented by Hasith Basnayake: PSTR154.08 Nov 17 at 8:00 AM www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/21171... #SfN25 #VisionScience #NeuroTechnology

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

bionic-vision.orgbionic-vision.org | Research Spotlights | Yossi MandelIn a new Advanced Functional Materials paper, Prof. Yossi Mandel and colleagues unveiled a hybrid retinal prosthesis that fuses living neurons with a high-density electrode array. By nestling human st...

30 Oct 2025

What if retinal prostheses could speak the brain’s language? 👁️🧠🧪 Prof. Yossi Mandel and team built a hybrid implant that merges neurons and electrodes to restore high-acuity sight. New Data Drop interview ↓ www.bionic-vision.org/research-spo... #BionicVision #Neurotech #Blindness

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

22 Oct 2025

Can Fruit Ninja train the #BionicEye? A new JoV paper finds that while participants improved with distorted “prosthetic” input, gaming-based training didn’t generalize to object recognition - hinting that rehab may need to stay task-specific. doi.org/10.1167/jov....

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

nejm.orgSubretinal Photovoltaic Implant to Restore Vision in Geographic Atrophy Due to AMD | NEJMGeographic atrophy due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible blindness and affects more than 5 million persons worldwide. No therapies to restore vision in ...

21 Oct 2025

🚨 Breakthrough alert: A new study in the NEJM reports that the PRIMA subretinal implant helped restore meaningful central vision in ~80% of participants with advanced geographic atrophy (an untreatable form of #AMD). www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/... #BionicVision #NeuroTech

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

27 Sept 2025

👁️🧠 New preprint: We demonstrate the first data-driven neural control framework for a visual cortical implant in a blind human! TL;DR Deep learning lets us synthesize efficient stimulation patterns that reliably evoke percepts, outperforming conventional calibration. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

universityofcalifornia.eduThrilling progress in brain-computer interfaces from UC labsUC researchers and the patients they work with are showing the world what's possible when the human mind and advanced computers meet.

17 Sept 2025

As federal research funding faces steep cuts, UC scientists are pushing brain-computer interfaces forward: restoring speech after ALS, easing Parkinson’s symptoms, and improving bionic vision with AI (that’s us 👋 at @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social). 🧠 www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/thrilli...

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

2 Aug 2025

Excited to share that I’ve been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at UCSB! Grateful to my mentors, students, and funders who shaped this journey and to @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social for giving the Bionic Vision Lab a home! Full post: www.linkedin.com/posts/michae...

Bionic Vision Lab reposted

embc.embs.orgProgram – EMBC 2025Loading...

16 July 2025

At #EMBC2025? Come check out two talks from my lab in tomorrow’s Sensory Neuroprostheses session! 🗓️ Thurs July 17 · 8-10AM · Room B3 M3-4 🧠 Efficient threshold estimation 🧑🔬 Deep human-in-the-loop optimization 🔗 embc.embs.org/2025/program/ #BionicVision #NeuroTech #IEEE #EMBS

embc.embs.orgProgram – EMBC 2025Loading...

13 July 2025

👁️⚡ Headed to #EMBC2025? Catch two of our lab’s talks on optimizing retinal implants! 📍 Sensory Neuroprostheses 🗓️ Thurs July 17 · 8-10AM · Room B3 M3-4 🧠 Efficient threshold estimation 🧑🔬 Deep human-in-the-loop optimization 🔗 embc.embs.org/2025/program/ #BionicVision #NeuroTech #IEEE #EMBS #Retina

bionicvisionlab.orgEvaluating deep human-in-the-loop optimization for retinal implants using sighted participants | Bionic Vision LabWe evaluate HILO using sighted participants viewing simulated prosthetic vision to assess its ability to optimize stimulation strategies under realistic conditions.

13 July 2025

🎓 Proud of our undergrad(!) Eirini Schoinas for leading this: bionicvisionlab.org/publications... 🧠 Human-in-the-loop optimization (HILO) works in silico—but does it hold up with real people? ✅ HILO outperformed naïve and deep encoders 🔁 A step toward personalized #BionicVision #EMBC2025