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Implants Allow the Blind to See
gihan_ripper writes "Neurosurgeon Kenneth Smith has performed a revolutionary operation on St Louis resident Cheri Robertson, connecting a camera directly to her optic nerve. The rig is in principle similar to Geordi La Forge's visor, albeit in very rudimentary form. At present, the 'image' consists of a number of white dots, as on an LED display. There are also governmental restrictions on this research, forcing Kenneth and his team to fly to Portugal to carry out the operation. If this technology takes off, the future will be bright for the sight-impaired."
Can I get the infrared/untraviolet model?
A blog about stuff.
Resistance is futile...
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
It sure is news of the patient isn't sent into a fit of spasms from a seizure every 45 minutes while the camera is activated.
You know, like what happened 10 years ago.
Camera tech is pretty well-known. Adding IR, UV, magnification, auto-adjusting for sunlight/night vision is all fairly trivial once you have the optic connection.
Imagine switching to sepia tone whenever you want that "wild west" feel.
The hard part, of course, is the resolution. Stimulating specific optic nerves is tricky, but fortunately your brain is good at dealing with odd input even if you don't get the connection quite right. It reminds me of the experiment where someone wore mirror glasses that flipped the world upside-down. After a week or so, everything seemed normal.
Maybe us geeks won't all go blind, well at least the ones of us that could afford this in our old age.
Why are there restrictions on research such as this? What kind of restrictions and how did they come about?
Last I heard -- several years ago -- they had enough resolution to see a a black/white machine just about comperable to a single ASCII character rendered on a 1985 era CRT. That would mean an "image" would have about as much clarity as, say, one of the falling mushrooms from an original Centipeded game. Not exactly high res, but a positive step.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
If they're not already, DARPA will be all over this like stink on a monkey. They'd love to have soldiers will what will amount to wallhacks.
On an unrelated note, if they could make it so that they didn't need to cut open my head to do it, I'd love to have infrared/ultraviolet/telescopic/ultrasonic vision.
Article states that electrodes are implated into the back of the brain. If it really were the optic nerve it would be more significant, less danger = wider adoption.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
How ironic, I just so happen to find this site today! Why go for this when Lasik is an easy to do at home project? Check it out here. I guess after you sear your eyeball as in step 3, you can replace it with one of those cameras.
Of course that all depends on whether or not the blindness we get from wanking is caused by degraded eyes or degraded brains...
Without reading the article, I will guess that this sort of advancement will benefit those who have lost their sight but not those who never had it.
Play Command HQ online
While it seems to be a rare operation, the parent was right: this has been done before.
The real news is that this procedure can't even be done in the U.S. America is supposed to be the land of the free and they can't even do an operation that gives a woman some sight back. What does that say about our progressiveness (is that a word?). The same goes for stem cells but I won't even get into that. I just wish we would get our head out of our asses when it comes to doing cutting edge surgery. You always hear it's coming out of Switzerland or Sweden (or Portugal in this case), why couldn't this be done here.
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
Another strategy was just invented: if you lost your photoreceptors, just make the other neurons in the retina or brain sensitive to light. A group just managed this today, for the first time, in mice. Blind mice, who had been treated with viruses that cause the targeted cells to express light-activated channels, were able to regain transmission of information about the external world to cortex. This was recently reported in a blog, and in other media.
So sad that massive bureaucracy and misinformation makes this kind of research too difficult and expensive.
Demented But Determined.
I must admit, I find it very difficult to trust any "journalism" with that many exclamation marks: "With the help of a device, she could see again!" This is written a lot like a press release, not a news article. Has this not been published in any major scientific journals?
Limina.Log
I didn't quite understand from the article why this procedure was prevented in the US, aside from cost. Could anyone shed some light on the matter?
Pretty cool nonetheless.
I recall seeing something like this late last year, but it was slightly different. In principle the same thing - electrodes connected into the optic nerve - but in this case it was a set of 16 electrodes in a 4x4 array. Essentially they had the guy equipped with the tech put a pair of glasses on that had a camera in the center. Each frame was broken down into the aforementioned 4x4 grid, and then delivered directly into the optic nerve. 4x4 is not exactly high resolution though, so the guy was only really able to distinguish light areas from dark.
There was further research planned though. The next goal was to create a 64-electrode version (8x8), which should give the ability to distinguish large features in the image being viewed, such as being able to distinguish the approximate figure of someone standing just infront of you. Their eventual goal was to be able to also build essentially glass eyes which would have a camera mounted within and would remove the need to pass the electrodes through the skull and out underneath the skin to the area of the temple where the signal from the camera was delivered.
Anyway, I'm not sure if this is more results from the same research, or another group working along similar lines. I unfortunately don't have a link to the older material and TFA is a bit sparse on details.
On the plus side, she could probably watch a solar eclipse without special glasses. That would be awesome.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
Can I replace my monitor with a direct optical link?
It was illegal before Bush. People have been pushing this kind of thing for a long time, and have been doing it outside of the country for a long time.
It's easy to blame everything on Bush... but really stupid too. By pinning everything on Bush, you ignore those really responsible.
Don't like the war in Iraq? Want to blame Bush? Did you forget that it requires an act of Congress to declare war, or do you just prefer to let the legislative branch delude you so they can get re-elected?
With a nice machine crunching video into edges, I guess even a 32x32 image could be useful to show the edges of sidewalks, obstructions etc. All sounds well within the scope of a PDA-level CPU.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
" I just wish we would get our head out of our asses when it comes to doing cutting edge surgery"
:-/
Unfortunately the operation to remove one's head from one's ass is banned in America due to government restrictions
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
It's important to note that due to the way the human brain develops synaptic connections in the visual cortex, only humans who had sight from birth to some age beyond 3 to 5 years of age will benefit a great deal from such a procedure. While people who are blind from birth due to cataracts or other conditions obtain some visual perception when the cataract is later removed, most never develop the neural connections that allow them to identify what they're seeing. Everything from navigating around desks in a well-lit classroom to differentiating a face from a table, a television, a light bulb, or an automobile is all but impossible if the visual cortex doesn't develop properly in response to normal visual stimulus from birth. Sight is useless without the ability to percieve what one is really seeing. So while this is incredibly impressive and promising for people who had sight but lost it, don't expect that this will be a cure-all to allow people with all types of blindness to see again.
This is the start of something wonderful. The Auditory nerves have already been hacked, and we are well down the path towards providing 1,024 channels of sound to persons who have lost their hearing due to ear damage, or malformed ear hardware.
Hacking the Optic Nerve is the Next Big Thing because humans get 90% of all sensory input via the optic nerve. Once you've cracked that you're 90% of the way towards very, very advanced cyborgs, with the 'net being ubiquitously available, and displaying as a HUD-type device over our normal vision, or as a 6 foot screen when the eyes are closed.
Simultaneous to these developments, we are already taking steps towards being able to offer ages people perfect memories again, by the introduction of the artificial hippocampus. (To my knowledge there are no people, as yet, with this device, but it works in Rats)
Having the ability to crack the "memory code" of our brains with a better hippocampus, and allowing our brains to use external storage ("wet-wiring"?), coupled with optic and auditory nerve implants is going to allow humans to improve themselves mentally beyond the limits which evolution, chemistry and brain size have created.
I can't wait for my implants!
I hope they won't run windows Brain-Edition though.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
"Lots of questions and I don't claim to have the answers"
I do.
"Are you sure this is progress?"
Yes.
"Can this surgery only be done if one is handicapped in some way?"
No, but until the result of operation is better than "normal" eyesight, it would be considered a downgrade for most people.
"What happens when the handicapped when augmented become more able than those who cannot have the surgery?"
Then not being able to have the surgery becomes the new handicap.
"Will we forbid computer implants for the "rich" because it will give them an unfair advantage over the "poor"?"
No. The operation costs money, which is something the rich have (apart from times where the rich donate to give the poor chance to recieve such tech). Plus you can't really ban someone from having something just because they've been more successful in life (or have been born into family success etc).
"Do we really want to become the Borg?"
Yes. But without the nasty makeup. Or the mind-linking, so we can keep having our dirty disgusting thoughts (and keep them to ourselves when we really need to).
This is just technology. The only thing different about it than other technology out there is it's interface. If you wanna see in the dark, there's nightvision goggles (which will cost MUCH less than having one sugically implanted). If you wanna see some chick nekkid, you just wait til she's asleep. This is no more disturbing than that.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Sounds like the ultimate peripheral for Duke Nukem Forever.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
As I read my computer screen right now, if I try to notice how my eyes move, I think I can really only read the word that my eyes are directly pointed at. I don't know if this phenomenon is a function of how the eye works or how the brain's visual center works or a combination of the two.
So, my question is, if someone sees using a camera mounted on their glasses (or whatever) will they have to move their entire head for every tiny little adjustment in what they want to look at?? will they have the ability to see with equal clarity a whole field of things at once??
If the first I think that would be a serious problem (not that they won't be happy to be able to see...). If it's the second then that could have some very cool advantages. For instance, if it works for one camera, how about 4 (one in each direction)?
Simple.
He can talk the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk.
I mean, he's still wearing glasses.
How am I supposed to trust a guy that obviously hasn't gone through the procedure himself?
Did anyone else read that as breast implants that let the blind see? Until i stopped and comprehended for a second I had some interesting visions flashing through my mind. Get bigger boobs and replace those nipples with transplanted eyeballs! Sounds like a character off some cheap Star Trek knock-off.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
TFA paints a very different picture:
:-/
He says, right now, governmental restrictions may get in the way of performing the surgery in the United States. "There were no governmental or hospital problems with getting permission to do the experimental operation in Portugal, whereas, it would be almost impossible here. Plus, it was much cheaper -- about one-third of the cost in the hospital as it would be in U.S. hospitals," he says
Nowhere does it say anything about government restrictions on the research
Sensationalisation (wow, that's a longer word than I thought) anyone?
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Did anyone else think breast implants when reading the headline? I figure they could be seeing in brail with such implants....
Restistance is futile!
:-(
It's all starting to come together.
Common sense is not so common
I find it troubling that more and more developments have to be taken out of America simply to make it happen, just like stem-cell research. I'm wonder if the people behind the loud, irritating moral voice against this type of research will have any qualms using the advances/benefits when they need them?
Did you forget that it requires an act of Congress to declare war....
_ Authorize_the_Use_of_United_States_Armed_Forces_Ag ainst_Iraq); the one that says "A state of war now exists between...."
y _the_United_States
Please provide a reference for that act of Congress that declared a state of war to exist between the US & Iraq. Not the 2002 resolution that authorized force to enforce UN resolutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Resolution_to
Good luck.
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_b
...we'll all have cameras for eyes and direct connections to the internet from our brains like in Ghost in the Shell. But it are the benefits really worth becoming a "ghost in a shell"? After all just wait until you get hacked are infected by the parallel Individual 11 virus.
I bother to fuck because it is enjoyable, not just because it is a biological imperative. I assume your "why fucking bother" is an oblique and cunning allusion to evolutionary processes, rather than the frustrated ravings of a complete idiot and an utter fool.
In answer to your question though:
1) Natural Selection has already run its course, that's why.
2) Because humans have an inate desire to improve themselves by any means possible, that's why.
Evolution has used many tools over the last 14 or so billion years to advance itself. It used gravity to collapse gas clouds into suns, and supernova feces, similarly, into planets, then it used other laws of physics and chemistry to create planets like Earth. Survival of the fittest was evolution's tool during the emergence of creatures on Earth, and to create homo sapiens sapiens.
Natural Selection is much reduced now - and so is survival of the fittest to a large degree. (Although those genuinely unable to survive are auto-aborted early in a pregnancy - an effect of survival of the fittest.)
From natural selection and survival of the fittest, evolution is now turning its attention to Un-natural selection (or "technoselection" if you will), whereby humans are improved via the use of technology. Ultimately, this may lead to several different species of humans, and a far wider definition of "human".
Ultimately of course, biology is a dead-end for evolution, and it seems likely to me that humans as we are now, are pretty much as far as biology can go. (It doesn't seem credible to think that bio-engineering could add infra-red ability to the human eye, add 100 petabytes of fault-free storage to the brain, create bones which will knit in an hour, harden bone until it's like metal, allow RF signals to be intercepted by the brain, or allow back-ups to be created should the worst occur.)
The limits of biology are well known, and it's obvious to me, that unless we find a way to move humanity from biology into hardware, that evolution will leave humanity behind, and we'll be destined to the fate suffered by other evolutionary dead ends.
If we don't pick up the mantle, I believe our self-aware creations will, and either way, this will lead to the pace of evolution kicking up yet another notch.
Each stage of evolution, and each paradigm of evolution has taken roughly half as long to achieve its goals as the preceding paradigm. The paradigm of technology removes almost all constraints from the rate of change in technology, and hence evolution can increase its pace at a rate more suited to the paradigm.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
Many countries have extensive laws regulating experimenting on human subjects, and make no mistake, this surgery is completely experimental. One of the big questions is how can a person give informed consent when the risks are considerable and the benefits not known. The laws are a two-edged sword. In this case the surgery had dramatic results and hasn't killed the patient, so the laws and regulations look stupid. On the other hand, if the story had been "6 patients killed in ill-considered experiment in Portugal" the regulations would look wise. Google "Tuskegee Syphilis" and "Dr. Ewen Cameron" if you want to read about some really awful cases of human experimentation.
I would imagine one of the question now is whether the patients are put at long term risk for a massive brain infection. Having a wire running directly into the brain from the outside world doesn't seem like a great idea to me.
Put your "eyes" on your shoes, and walk close to some skirtage.
Table-ized A.I.
Uh, no. "Image sensors", like eyes, don't produce a signal that is fundamentally different from the signals produced by any other sensory organ. What matters is where in the location in the brain to which those signals are directed. Although I'm not certain, I'd guess that this is why the technique won't work on those who were never able to see - they never developed the necessary neural connections in the brain for vision.
You might find this interesting as well.
. html
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,59634,00
Silicone Implants Cause the Male to Go Blind
I'm a student at UCLA working on a similar project called Retinal Prosthetic writing code in Visual C++ and Intel's OpenCV library. Check out their site:
n dex.htm
http://www.judylab.org/research/projects/George/i
We're running a simulation of what the surgeon is doing by having the subject wear goggles with a s-video input (it's those fancy expensive goggles to watch movies or to game on). Similar to the article, a camera is attached to the front of the goggles. The input feeds into the computer, chugs through my code, and displays an image meant to simulate varying amounts of electrodes (4x4, 16x16, 64x64) in various configurations (wide screen vision anyone?). All this goes on while the subject tries to accomplish tasks (writing a check, discerning between a fork and knife, etc).
Also, check out a company working on implementing this idea:
http://www.2-sight.com/
Joking aside, I find this very interesting. I have a hereditory, degenerative eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinitis_pigmentosa ) which I was diagnosed with when I was very young. Being hereditory my Mum, Nan and Uncle all have this condition as well, and I have also found older relatives on cencuses who are marked down as 'blind', probably indicating that they also had the condition.
The condition worsens with age, so at the moment I am not too bad. I don't have any night vision and so I struggle in dark rooms or out at night time, but during the day I am OK. As people with RP get older, especially into 40s, 50s and beyond blind spots can develop, as well as tunnel vision or even total loss of vision.
I was surpised recently to find out that our car park attendant Dave here at work also has the condition since it is very rare (I think approximately 10,000 people of 56 million in the UK have it). Dave is in his 50s and in the last six months his vision has deteriorated rapidly such that he was registered partially sighted and the actually registered blind. He now has to walk with a white stick and has been retired from work, which is a lot to come to terms with in the space of a year or so. Sadly it took him more by surprise because it had skipped a generation in his genes and so neither of his parents had it and could explain it to him.
I am only 24, it gives me hope to think that in the next 25 years or so this research may develop to the point where it is commonplace, and that if I did lose my sight I would simply be able to book an appointment to get my visor fitted and that would be the end of it!
Ian.
In other news, the US congress just passed a law that would make it mandatory to fit these camera devices with a new DRM technology that blocks unlicensed contents. You will only see what the *AA (or the government) wants you to see...
The device stimulates the brain directly, not the optic nerve. Stories like this have been kicked around the block for quite awhile.