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Artificial Vision for the Blind

Posted by michael on from the amazing-grace dept.

castanaveras writes "Canadian doctors implanted an artificial eye into a blind man - it performs well enough for him to be able to drive (admittedly in an empty parking lot)." We've done lots of previous stories about bionic eyes.

2 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. The ultimate eyeball by Mustang+Matt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So if creativity was your only limitation, what would the ultimate artificial eyeball be capable of?

    I assume it would have huge amounts of optical zoom capability. Would it also have some sort of CCD showing so that you could change your eye "style" on demand?

    Maybe it could have a little hole in the middle of it setup to squirt "eye fluid" on people you don't like!

    --
    The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
  2. This device bypasses some important areas by Illserve · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't get me wrong, I'm very impressed by this device, and I hope it works out.

    However, the visual cortex is not the end all-all be-all of visual information in the brain. Visual information on the way to this cortex is first passed through other areas of the brain, such as the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus, which process the information, and also allow it to interact with other brain areas.

    Based on my knowledge of the intricate, piecemeal nature of brain design, these pre-processing areas are probably involved in some fairly important low-level, reflexive aspects of vision. Bypassing them may restore the conscious aspects of vision and allow a great deal of function, but will miss out on some other aspects of vision that we are not consciously aware of.

    Repairing the optic nerve is the only way to get real vision.

    But that's step #1000, kudos to these pioneers for having the courage and ability to do step #10.