Robotic retina offers second chance for sight:
Six blind patients have had their sight partially restored by a “bionic eye” surgically implanted onto their retina. Although it restores only very rudimentary vision, the device has proved so successful that its developers are about to begin a study of a more sophisticated version on between 50 and 75 patients.If this trial goes to plan, the device could be available to patients in two years and one day it could be used to digitally enhance human sight.
The bionic eye works by converting images from a tiny camera mounted on a pair of glasses into a grid of 16 electrical signals that transmit directly to the nerve endings in the retina.
“It’s amazing that even with 16 pixels how much our subjects have been able to do,” said Professor Mark Humayun at the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California who has pioneered the device.
“We were completely wrong…We thought from simulations that 16 would only give you distinction between light and dark and maybe some grey scale.”
In fact, subjects are able to tell the difference between objects such as a cup, a plate and a knife. They can also tell which direction objects are moving in front of them. “The brain is able to fill in a lot of the information,” he added.