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Patients get Solar Implants in Eyes
Ben Sullivan writes "As reported at Science Blog, ophthalmologists have implanted Artificial Silicon Retina microchips in the eyes of five patients to treat vision loss caused by retinitis pigmentosa. The implant is a 2mm chip that contains about 5,000 microscopic solar cells that convert light into electrical impulses. Already some patients have experienced improvements such as not bumping into objects around the house, and being able to read the time on a clock."
How do the doctors know what kinds of electrical signals the brain needs in order to see what they;re supposed to see?
Also, if they do figure out how to make this like our vision, don't solar cells "see" in higher wavelengths than our eyes do? Wouldn't people not see blue and purple but instead get UV and the like?
-SaNo
Ophthalmologists at Rush University Medical Center implanted Artificial Silicon Retina (ASR) microchips in the eyes of five patients to treat vision loss caused by retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The implant is a silicon microchip 2mm in diameter and one-thousandth of an inch thick, less than the thickness of a human hair. Four patients had surgery Tuesday, January 25. The fifth patient is scheduled for a later date.
Rush principal investigator Dr. John Pollack performed the surgeries with Dr. Kirk Packo, Dr. Pauline Merrill, Dr. Mathew MacCumber, and Dr. Jack Cohen. All are members of Illinois Retina Associates, S.C., a private practice group and are on the Rush faculty. Patients leave the hospital the same day and will be followed for two years as part of the study, and then indefinitely.
The patients were recruited from a pool of about 5,000 applicants.
The implants are designed for people with retinal diseases such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, which cause blindness and vision impairment in about 10 million Americans. More than one million of these people are legally blind.
"As is commonly seen in with retinitis pigmentosa, these patients all have severe narrowing of their visual fields down to a very small central circle, and all patients in the study are legally blind," says Pollack.
The Artificial Silicon RetinaTM (ASR) was invented by Dr. Alan Chow, pediatric ophthalmologist and Rush faculty member, who developed the chip and founded Optobionics, with his brother Vincent, vice president of engineering. Optobionics is located in Naperville, Illinois.
"This is an expansion of the study of the first 10 patients completed in 2002," says study investigator Dr. Kirk Packo, who oversees the three participating sites. The sites are Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Emory University School of Medicine/Atlanta VA Medical Center and Rush.
Pollack says the current protocol has been modified to reduce the likelihood of inadvertant scientific bias. "We operated on the right eye of each of the initial 10 patients. For the next 20 patients we will randomly select which eye will receive the ASR chip. In addition, post-operative vision testers will be masked as to which eye received the ASR chip implant. The current study is being performed at these study centers in order to independently validate previous studies performed by Optobionics."
The first 10 patients all reported some degree of improvement in visual function, says Pollack. "Improvement in visual function was variable and included the ability to read letters, improvement in color vision, and expansion of their visual field. Some patients gained new ability to recognize facial features -- something that they were unable to do before ASR chip implantation. Some patients have experienced improvement in activities of daily living such as improved ambulation-not bumping into objects around the house, and reading the time on a clock."
Still in Phase II clinical trials, Pollack cautions it is still too early to determine what percentage of patients might experience improvement in vision and what resolution capability these patients might eventually have. "Although we hope that all patients receiving the chip will experience some improvement in visual function, we can't say for sure how these patients will respond to this new treatment since this is still an experimental trial. If this study and future studies show safety and efficacy of the chip and it's approved by the FDA, it could be as soon as three to five years that this technology would be available to others."
Surgical Information
The ASR chip contains approximately 5,000 microscopic solar cells that convert light into electrical impulses. The purpose of the chip is to replace damaged photoreceptors, the "light-sensing" cells of the eye, which normally convert light into electrical signals within the retina. Loss of photoreceptor cells occurs in persons with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and other retinal diseases.
Sounds like we're on the road to the artificial eye one of OSC's characters had in the Ender's Game series. One of its cool features was that you could pull pictures and video off of it, as well as see through it. It was an in-skull camera.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Night vision, anyone?
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
Riddick, you're days are numbered!
Soon, I too will have night-vision.
Bwahahahaha...
Any word yet on those muscular implants?
Direct away from face when opening.
Especially when installed in pairs.
Isn't this what Stevie Wonder has, w/r/t the pigmentosa? Furthermore, I seem to remember them talking about the possibility a couple of years ago that he would be a candidate for something similar, with a microchip.
I'd imagine that his condition has degenerated far too much along to be aided by this, but if I recall correctly, they nonetheless said he might be a candidate for something similar. I don't think they ended up using him, however.
i wonder what will be first: - a human of whom all parts are subsituted by technology - a robot which will have a real human soul
When will we get the ability to enhance current senses and strength. This kind of tech is always the most fun.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
TCP/IP into neurostimulation. Preferably allowing two-way communication. Then I can finally assimilate Google.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I guess it sounds more exciting to call them "solar cells," but obviously they're light sensors. If they were originally developed for use in solar electricity production, that should be in article, not the headline. "Matters for Nerds. Stuff that News!"
The article really doesn't explain why the chips are reffered to as "solar" cell implants. Are these people only going to be able to see light from the sun (I doubt it). I guess they just lacked a better word for the cells, any other suggestions as to why this is?
So my answer is...yes
I'm not a doctor, but I play one in bed.
This development is very very^H^H^H^H^H important. I have been reading the material on this stuff and it looks as if it is possible to give people devoid of sight, some sight back.
THE REAL treasure here is knowing the brain can adapt. Think about it, they were deprived of sight, and then their brain was able to REORGANIZE itself to understand totally FOREIGN signals and use them as input.
It demonstrates how our wetware is more adaptable than any hardware.
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
The prop department was all out of hair clips.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The ASR chip contains approximately 5,000 microscopic solar cells that convert light into electrical impulses.
5000 cells, that's an area of 70x70 cells. Is that enough to see with or am I missing something?
-- Cheers!
I work on RP. It CAN and DOES cause blindness. Its more of a group of diseases as opposed to one monolithic disease. From emedicine:
52% had 20/40 or better vision in at least one eye, 25% had 20/200 or worse vision, and 0.5% had no light perception
So, in conclusion, don't be a cock. Seriously, tell those people they aren't blind.
The porn industry has been waiting for this....
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
On friday I'm going in for essentially the same surgery, only instead of inserting a chip, they try to deal with the bad blood vessel. Then, after a week of lying face down, and a month of no flying (which kills my easy work commute and turns it into a 5 hour ordeal), I get to find out how much damage was done to my retinal pigments by the blood that has been pooling there for half a year.
Damage that *used* to be un-repairable. With this technology now deployed there's a good chance it will be routine for people like me in 10-15 years.
And given that the likelyhood of diagnosis in the second (currently good) eye is about 1 in 50 per year from now on, the stats give me 15-25 years before I start worrying about getting an artificial retina.
Hooray for bionics!
My wife has early onset RP and it does far more than affect night vision and peripheral vision - it ultimately causes all vision to be lost, from the outside in. In the past few months my wifes central vision in her right eye has started to fail dramatically.
Normally RP is diagnosed later on in life so the full effects of the disease are not normally experienced, however many suffer from childhood and it is those people that will benefit from this type of technology.
In tandem with this research there has also been progress made in retinal transplants using stem cell growth mediums to allow the cells to function normally.
Its nice to see some hope, particularly for my wife who has been told that she would be blind by the time she was ten. That was 23 years ago.
Mod parent up. I'm a bit confused myself.
A quick search on google brings up this page. Also on Wikipedia.
Any med geeks out there who could shed light on this?
Try not to let life get in the way of living.
So when will we see those eye-chips with laser? I'd buy it.
I can see it now...
Subject: 3nh4nce your v1si\on impl4nts lklkr 23iou
Hi Jan Dopplemeyer,
Our n3w onl1ne pharmac`y has all new optIcal impl4nts to give you b3tter p3rform`4nce.
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G.W. Bush read his inaugaration speech with a gaggle of goats eating barley and malt at the local tavern. A mouse steps in to talk to Cheney about poker. We put this line here because we think we can fool your spam filter, unless you use DSPAM.
Humanoid robots might also have uses for these artificial silicon retina microchips.
Robots with a sense of vision could use them to acquire humanoid eyeballs.
Artificial General Intelligence is a lot closer than many people realize.
some patients have experienced improvements such as not bumping into objects around the house, and being able to read the time on a clock.
/. editors. Maybe it will help them spot duplicate stories better.
I say these should be mandatory for
*ducks*
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
I've read somewhere that our visual input is pretty crappy and our brain learns to tidy the signal a lot. If you have no vision beforehand, 70x70 is a big deal.
Myself, I'll still wait till we get 1MegaPixel versions though.....
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Karma: Chameleon
This is great news. I've been following these procedures for quite some time. Retinitis Pigmentosa runs in our family.
One thing to point out is that this disease is a degeneration of the retina. It's called pigmentosa due to the fact that as the retinal cells die, small spots appear on the retina. The degenerations starts on the outside, and moves inward, creating a tunnel-like feeling for the patient.
My uncle had surgery in Cuba (We live in Guatemala, so let's just skip the whole Cuba-American posts) where they operated his retina, and treated it with oxygen and Ozone therapies. This type of operation is not intended to cure it, but to stop it. This was about 5 years ago, and his retinitis pigmentosa has not spread, but it's still a bit early to know for sure.
If you have more questions there is tons of information on the web
--------------------
Arturo Mijangos
When hooked up to sensors it was realized that the same parts of his brain were stimulated that us sighted folks use to remember things we have seen. So, I imagine that the signals are not FOREIGN to the brain and there isn't much REORGANIZing going on. The "circuitry" is there and can still be used even without the constant stimuli.
Very impressive article. Perhaps helps to explain people can regain some sight with these improvements. Perhaps all one has to do is get a signal there and the brain will take care of the rest.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
...that make me wish I studied life science instead of computer engineering. I'd love to say I contributed to a great advancement like this, and the biomedical field really interests me. In computer architecture if I were to say "I invented a new branch predictor that's 100% accurate and only consumes 20% of the normal die area", about 19/20 people wouldn't know what the hell I was talking about. Are we forever to be unsung heroes? >_>
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When surgeons re-attach a severed limb they don't worry about getting all the neurons connected correctly. They connect them randomly, and the brain learns the new mapping.
Physically therapy takes care of the learning, but it is a side effect, the brain is good at learning new mappings. The body generally has many more problems making everything work, in ways that are not related to incorrectly attached neurons.
My mother has RP. She was born with vision problems which have worsened over time. You are correct in saying that RP affects peripheral and night vision, however, over time RP degrades vision to complete blindness. My mother used to be able to see some color differences and some general shapes (before I was born). Since my birth, however, her vision has worsened considerably; from being able to see only extreme differences in light to almost 100% blindness. So yes, the indicators of RP are loss of peripheral and night vision, but they are by no means the only result of the disease.
"I see clocks."
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
That's the first thing I thought. Well, I cursed the dirty Tleilaxu first, then I thought of their damn eyes.
One of [the] cool features [of a science-fictional eye implant that this product resembles] was that you could pull pictures and video off of it, as well as see through it. It was an in-skull camera.
Watch people with implants be banned from entering movie theaters.
Finally hope for serial masturbators everywhere.
Is solar powered brain for idiot people
Care to volunteer?
--Residential Interior Design
http://www.ultrapro.ro/magazin/AfiseazaProdus.jsp? pr_id=14022&NewGrid2Page=2
In tandem with this research there has also been progress made in retinal transplants using stem cell growth mediums to allow the cells to function normally.
Just for the sake of curiousity, are these adult stem cells or fetal stem cells they're working with? You know, that being one of the hot-button targets in stem cell research...
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Who needs eyes? I navigate by looking into the twists and turns of the future! -KH
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There is an interesting depiction of implant technology in the book "The Opoponax Invasion" by John Brosnan.
It's been a while since I read it, but I seem to remember being a lot more impressed with the ideas in it than the story itself. It was still an entertaining enough read though.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
You're referring to Amblyopia, commonly called "lazy eye." I had a friend in kindergarten who suffered from it. Luckily, they detected it early enough for him to go on the patch, specifically, an eyepatch to force him to use the other eye. Sadly, it is indeed one of those disorders which is not fixable after a certain age.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I am happy to see progress in implant technology.
I wonder when there will be some implants for all the people who have lost their sense of humor...
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Since reading Otherland a few years back (Tad Williams), I have been very curious about new advances in the neurobiological fields. While Williams was not the first to come up with these kind of ideas, he had definitly changed the path i have chosen for univerity study.
... -, i think people soon will want and have the ability to plug into the net and be _completly_ imersed in the virtual enviroment.
Does anyone recall the experiment that implanted electrodes in the brains of chimps, and they where able to play pong just using thought?
I think that, more than ever before, in the next decade, some of the most life changing science for people with disibilities is going to emerge. not just from the pure medical (and social) reasons - helping the blind, motor disabled
I know this sounds terribly geeky, and anti social, but just imagine what the combination of all these technologies may do, one day, for paraplegic patients, who have very little, or no ability to comunicate with the outside world.
Richard Priar "I'm black?"
Husband to wife: "Hey you said you were a 5'9" super model"
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
thats funny. My Doctor told me I could go blind in 3 years or 30 years, that sounds like a far cry from reduced night vision and reduced peripheral vision, anyway he did mention that RP in my case is calcium deposits surrounding the rods and cones in my eyes, so basically the receptors are not damaged, just obscured, a chip with some pins on it should be able to reach the back of the eye and provide substitute electrical signals for my brain.
This would be rad, I would love to be able to do things in low light situations, like not running over waitresses in almost every restaurant in the country or go to clubs or even, dare I say it, Drive at night, oh the rapture.
We'd also need to know the size of the chip to figure out the angular resolution which is far more important than the raw 70x70 size.
70x70 that had a large angular span would be very very useful for navigating the world, even if it wouldn't help them read the fine print on the bottom of an auto loan.
70x70 that had a very small angular span would help them read the auto loan but would be absolutely useless for walking out of the house towards the car. Think about it... a blind person's white cane is an extremely high resolution device, but it's angular width is less than 1" at 6 feet.
--Rob
IAAVN (I Am A Visual Neuroscientist) working on artificial vision. I have seen presentations on this approach, and unlike many of the other efforts in this field, Dr. Chow's claims appear astonishingly good.
The basic idea is beautiful and elegant: you put an array of tiny photodiodes behind the retina, exactly where the photoreceptor cells (rods and cones) are. Shining light on each of these nearly-cell-sized photodiodes creates a localized voltage which should stimulate a small handful of cells, generating a signal that will mimic the original biologically transduced input to the retina. The photodiodes nicely supplant the dying photosensitive cells. It sounds perfect.
I was very impressed with their presentation at a one-day symposium on artificial vision I attended at USC a few years ago, until one of the audience members pointed out that they had done some calculations, and it seemed that one would need incredibly high light levels to generate enough current to stimulate the local cells. Dr. Chow admitted that, even being optimistic about the conversion efficiency of photodiodes (which here need to be optimized for biocompatibility more than efficiency), the physics involved dictates that you would need light bright enough to cause damage to even the non-photosensitive tissue to get the device to work. Dr. Chow then backpedaled to say that even if the device cannot restore lost vision, it can perhaps supplant any remaining healty cells to improve vision in low-sighted patients. That question-anwer cycle was the first point in his presentation where he backed off from the claim of restoring full vision to blind patients.
Dr. Chow's results were done in a private laboratory, part of a company set up to profit from his advances. He must answer to his shareholders, and his results are not open to the level of scruitiny that standard scientific claims are. He was reluctant to answer questions at this session. Therefore, as a scientist I am bound by the lack of openness to view his claims with a grain of salt.
Other efforts to create artificial vision are still having trouble with just a handful of points of light. While I believe that the subretinal approach has a good chance of eventually proving fruitful, using a silicon-based device that lacks an external power source just cannot produce normal vision. This is why the article concentrates on the improvements in existing low vision, rather than discussing restoration of lost vision.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I've always thought that the best analogy for our eyes are two coaxial cameras. A very narrow beam, high resolution camera slightly off the centerline, surrounded by a wide-angle low resolution camera.
Rods, which predominate the wide-angle camera system, are like hyped B&W film... great night sensitivity, but grainy. Cones, which dominate the inner narrow-angle camera system give color vision, but require much higher light levels to operate.
--Rob
I'd be curious if the sensitivity of the surrounding neurons would increase to better sense the impulses generated by the implant. It seems that this would just be a small modification of the neural net...
As such it would seem logical to extrapolate that this approach would be far better with patients who still have low vision rather than no vision because their neural nets already have "the right wiring" so there's only one biological know (the sensitivity) that needs to be tweaked.
--Rob
Similar effort by Boston Retina Implants and was covered on slashdot before.
Dude....I'm just guessing but I'm thinking that you'll be making that work commute in your flying car (by Moller of course) before you'll be walking around with that artificial eye......
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
Maybe you should have taken 5 seconds to get your facts correct.
I was not trying to attack your use of stem cells in therapy. I was merely trying to clarify. While I have an opinion, it didn't seem relative to the discussion. And yes, this reply is off-topic, but I wanted to assure you that you were not being attacked, as your post seemed to indicate you thought you were.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
^_^ I'll skip any jokes about how opening the third eye would obviously imply being able to open the second one as well... Heck, that might even be too close to the truth.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
You not come here! Illegal! I just do eyes. Just - just eyes. Just genetic design. Just eyes.
There is no reset button in life; however, there are bonus levels.
I guess it was only a matter of time before they were able to decode the electric impulses sent out by eyes and received by the brain...
Once this information in known, they can manipulate it or copy it with artificial means.
I have a friend with RP, and this would really help him...
What I want is a way to
A) do a "shine job" on my eyes so I can better see in the dark
or
B) implant one of these kind of chips to enhance my vision with the UV and IR spectrums...
--E--
My wife has RP and we have been following the development of this prosthetic for years.
My wife however wants to wait until they can make a model with "heat vision" therefore becoming a super-powered cyborg, that can cook a steak just by staring at it.
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
Some of us are from the '60's and have children older than you. The technology discussed in the article was just so much fiction only twenty-five years ago. Many sub 20k Slashdot userids welcome the fact our life expectancy and quality of life has increased significantly due to technology. I first used the internet over a teletype terminal and the six million dollar man was still in production.
LOL! Kids these days
I would like to chip in on this conversation, as I have RP, as does my father, two of my sisters, and my grandmother (mother of my dad). This disease does indeed have early symptoms, primarily of impaired night vision. Since this has been in our family, we have known about it early and therefore we are very interested as such things as the electron possibility. But these tests have so far had limited results. There is also another solution which helps a little, and that is daily taking Vitamin A Palmitate, at a dosage level of 15,000 IU. Taking this fairly high dosage, the affects of RP have been known to have 20% less impact per year.
These solutions do not truly fix the problem, but hopefully over time a solution will be found. Retinitis Pigmentosa has serious effects, it is quite scary seeing your family members go blind, and knowing you will too.
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
A large computer icon is often 64x64 pixels. You can extract considerable information from that. If you could adjust your grid to view "between" the pixels (squinting, moving your focus slightly, etc) to build a better idea of what was there, you could do even better.
It's should be enough to avoid walking into walls, pick things up more easily, identify colour and light, etc. A heck of a lot better than nothing.
By the way, this has been done for sound for a while now - in fact, I think such hearing aids may be in or near normal clinical use. Visual stimulation like this has been done before too, but I didn't know of anything this self contained or high detail. Wow.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
What I'm waiting for is arrays of small lenses that are implanted around the eye, say in the skin above the orbital socket. Then have an implanted computer that uses interferometry to combine the images. Want to look at the night sky without heavy binoculars (or maybe even a telescope)? Done. Walking in the dark w/o tripping? Done.
The lense material would have to be really tough, though, so as to prevent scratching or breaking due to accidents and day to day wear. It'd really suck to have to get the lenses replaced because they kept getting scratched by your pillow case at night.
For more details, here's a link to an actual research paper by Chow et all (2004): The Artificial Silicon Retina Microchip for the Treatment of Vision Loss From Retinitis Pigmentosa .
Besides more details, the research paper also includes photos of things like a shot of the artificial retina on top of a penny (it's about as big as Abraham Lincoln's nose), the actual circuitry, and where it gets placed in the back of the eye. It also shows the results of their visual tests on patients with the artificial retina.
A quick google search proves this to be the case:n t=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=retin al+pigmentosa+blindness&spell=1/)
Two seconds of google to check up on it, SimianOverlord. Another three seconds to actually read the google results. Is that so difficult?
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&clie
check out the best blog ever:
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I suffer from a mild form of RP (X-Linked for anyone who has read up on the condition) so its with a certain amount of bias that I read such articles. Could anyone guess for what what kind of effect a large EMP would have on these implants? (I know little to nothing about the the implants themselves)
There are three types of RP, X-Linked effects night vision and peripheral vision. the other two can lead to blindness.
That's cool, I guess. I'd rather be able to see in sonic or infrared. Where can I get eyes like that?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Yeah, then I could be as clever in real life as in IM sessions:
TOTOsFrnd: Hey, have you seen the new <thing-that-TOTO-has-never-heard-of>?
[GoogleGoogleGoogle]
TOTO: Oh, yeah, man, that's really cool, but the phlognotignomicator interface looks a little clunky.
TOTOsFrnd: Wow, TOTO, you're really awesome and knowledgable.
I though you were either coldcold or TFGeditor who said solar meant no external power source (in this context) Oh well, at least it's nice to know someone else replies to old posts! I thought it might only be me.
It always helps to turn on "Email when one of your posts is replied to." in preferences :-P
My dog's better 'cause he eats Ken-L Ration!