Monday, April 04, 2005
Blind Sight
Researchers at Stanford University have built a "bionic eye" and started testing the device in rats. They say that the eye's vision is 20/80, sharp enough to recognize faces, watch TV, and read large print letters. They hope that in the future the eye may cure blindness in people with damaged retinas. However, they warned that human trials are at least three years away.
"Currently, there is no effective treatment for most patients with AMD (age-related macular degeneration) and RP (retinitis pigmentosa)," the researchers said. "However, if one could bypass the photoreceptors and directly stimulate the inner retina with visual signals, one might be able to restore some degree of sight."
The artificial eye works by directly stimulating the retinal layer underneath the dead photoreceptors "using a system that looks like a cousin of the high-tech visor blind engineer Lt. Geordi La Forge wore in Star Trek: The Next Generation."
The researchers said that the system consists of a tiny video camera "mounted on transparent 'virtual reality' style goggles." There's also a wallet-sized computer processor, a solar-powered battery implanted in the iris and a half a rice grain-sized light-sensing chip implanted in the retina. The chip allows users to perceive 10 degrees of visual field at a time.
Artificial eyes had already been designed in Germany, Japan, and elsewhere in the U.S. But the Stanford researchers say it achieves the highest clarity by making the most of the eye's natural image-processing strengths by subretinal placement of implants," as well as "tracking rapid intermittent eye movements required for natural image perception."
"Currently, there is no effective treatment for most patients with AMD (age-related macular degeneration) and RP (retinitis pigmentosa)," the researchers said. "However, if one could bypass the photoreceptors and directly stimulate the inner retina with visual signals, one might be able to restore some degree of sight."
The artificial eye works by directly stimulating the retinal layer underneath the dead photoreceptors "using a system that looks like a cousin of the high-tech visor blind engineer Lt. Geordi La Forge wore in Star Trek: The Next Generation."
The researchers said that the system consists of a tiny video camera "mounted on transparent 'virtual reality' style goggles." There's also a wallet-sized computer processor, a solar-powered battery implanted in the iris and a half a rice grain-sized light-sensing chip implanted in the retina. The chip allows users to perceive 10 degrees of visual field at a time.
Artificial eyes had already been designed in Germany, Japan, and elsewhere in the U.S. But the Stanford researchers say it achieves the highest clarity by making the most of the eye's natural image-processing strengths by subretinal placement of implants," as well as "tracking rapid intermittent eye movements required for natural image perception."
