Bionic Eye by 2013

Three weeks ago, Chris James, who has been blind for 25 years, saw a sudden pulsating light in his left eye, like a camera bulb or a lighting flash. Doctors had just switched on a wafer-thin, 3mm microchip implanted at the back of his eye. At first all he could see was light. Now he can distinguish shapes and might, in time, even be able to recognize faces. James's experimental 'bionic eye' reacts to light, sending an electronic signal that is picked up by the optic nerve and processed by the brain into an image. The treatmentcould partially restore the sight of thousands of sufferers of a condition called retinitis pigmentosa, which causes the photoreceptor cells at the back of the eye to deteriorate. "As soon as I had this flash in my eye, it confirmed that my optic nerves are functioning properly," he said. "It was like someone taking a photo with a flashbulb - a pulsating light." In March James, a 54-year-old from Wroughton, Wiltshire, underwent an eight-hour operation at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford to have the chip implanted. A second patient, Robin Millar, 60, a music producer, had the surgery at Kingis College Hospital in London, as part of the first UK clinical trial of the microchip, which has been developed by the German company Retina Implant AG. The surgery involves inserting a cable through the layers of the eyeball to place thechip on an area of the retina the size of a pinhead. The chip is connected to a power source implanted under the skin behind the ear. "What makes this unique is that all functions of the retina are integrated into the chip," said professor Robert MacL aren, who carried out the first operation at Kingis College Hospital in London. "It has 1,500 light-sensing diodes and small electrodes that stimulate the nerves to create a pixillated image." The patients only have a small range of black and white vision : a rectangle about the size of a CD case held at arm's length. At present James can only make outshapes andlinescloseup and it could takes weeks for the brain to begin to accurately interpret the signals received from the microchip.

 --THE INDEPENDENT

WASHINGTON: In a pioneering research, scientists claim to be developing bionic eyes for the blind, which they say will be ready for human trials by 2013. An international team, led by Monash University, says the bionic eye implant will suit people who have lost their sight through traumatic injury or tumours, as well as for those with diseases affecting eyes like glaucoma and retinal disorders. "We have made significant progress since beginning last year and are confident we will have a device that could treat the majority of patients who are clinically blind," said team leader Arthur Lowery. He added, "Our device will directly stimulate the brain's vision centre using a miniaturised implant. The implant is fed with signals from a camera that have been processed to extract the most useful information , depending on what the user needs. "The implant has many tiles, each with 45 electrodes , designed to give over 650 pixels in all. Due to the powerful and adaptable signal processing , we believe this number of electrodes can provide invaluable situational awareness to the user. The device can also be tuned for use in different environments, both indoors and outdoors." It does not require a functioning eyeball or optic nerve or visual pathways from the eye to the brain.


Courtesy: Times of India