The advent of cochlear implant in the 1970s and ocular implants in the early 2000s revolutionized hearing and vision loss handling by circumventing damaged Hammond organ with digital prostheses that directly stimulated nervous pathways . But these gimmick have been poor substitutes for the genuine thing . That is , until now .
For those of us with functioning vision , the rods and cones within the oculus interpret incoming lighting into electric pulses , then prey them through the retina into the brain where the signals are recombined into the images we see . However , mass endure from hereditary eye disease like retinitis pigmentosa , the perch and cones flunk . The quietus of the neural pathway from the retina on back still work just all right but are in the main useless without the photoreceptors sire the initial electrical impetus .
Much like cochlear implants before it , the Argus II artificial retina sidesteps these damaged photoreceptors and injects visual entropy direct into the visual nerve . First introduced by pioneering American prosthetics business firm , Second Sight , in 2002 , the Argus II employs a three - part arrangement . A glasses - mount miniature camera appropriate images of the environment around its wearer then send these paradigm to an attached Video Processing Unit ( VPU ) which translate the image into bait instructions . These instructions are then charge back to the glasses which transmit them wirelessly to the planted contrived retina . The visual implant lie of an 60 - block electrode array that emits electrical pulses to activate unlike strands of the optical nerve and generate a perceptible practice of light for the drug user . With this system , citizenry could “ see ” effort , coloring , and the outline of objects around them but the electronic heart was never discriminating enough for read so patients persist reliant on finger - read braille . But no longer .
A little Swiss work published in the journal Frontiers demonstrates that the Argus II can also be modify to transmit braille design across just six of the system ’s 60 electrode like a shot into a patient ’s wit , allowing him to quickly and accurately recognise short words — basically let him to learn without relying on the system of rules ’s camera .
“ In this clinical trial with a individual unreasoning patient role , we go around the camera that is the usual remark for the implant and right away induce the retina . Instead of sense the braille on the peak of his digit , the patient could see the patterns we projected and then read item-by-item letters in less than a second with up to 89 % truth , ” Lead author and researcher Thomas Lauritzen say in a press release . “ There was no input except the electrode stimulant and the patient role recognize the braille letters easy . This proves that the affected role has good spatial solving because he could easily distinguish between signals on dissimilar , individual electrode . ”
While the Argus II is still a hemorrhage - edge technology — only about 50 people worldwide have had the $ 100,000 gimmick installed — researchers retain to detect unexampled and innovative usage for the applied science , bringing it nearer and closer to the mainstream . [ Frontiers – PopSci–2nd Sight – HuffPo – Wikipedia – range of a function : AP Photo / Martin Cleaver ]
Medicine
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , science , and cultivation news in your inbox day by day .
word from the future , render to your present .
You May Also Like
