Bionic Cat Eye Implants Aid Blindness Research

docinthemachine writes with news of felines getting human retinal implants. The cats were afflicted with a version of retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that also blinds humans. The implants are 2-millimeter-wide chips surgically implanted in the back of eye. Each chip's surface is covered with 5,000 microphotodiodes that react to light, sending electric signals along the eye's optic nerve to the brain. The article makes clear that the implants don't allow the cats to see — what they get is impulses of light. The hope is that the electrical activity in the optic nerve will encourage new retinal cells to grow. The article notes: "The chips, which provide their own energy, have shown encouraging results in clinical human trials, in some cases improving sight in people with retinitis pigmentosa or at least slowing the disease's development. Narfstrom said chips have been implanted in 30 people."

Comments

Morals

[pete-classic]

My cat refuses to use any product or treatment that has been tested on humans.

-Peter

Re:Morals

[Lord_Slepnir]

I have a perfectly balanced compromise:

We test this out on PeTA members.

I'll go get the corkscrews, you get the doctors to put these in.

The Collective

[the dark hero]

"Resistance is futile." - The Borg

Re:The Collective

[vertinox]

Or in the case:

"Resistance is... Oooh! A peice of yarn!" *pounce* -Cat Borg

Re:Backwards?

[ross.w]

Not with cats. We exist only to serve their every need. If you didn't know this, you obviously never had a cat.

Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one, welcome our new feline cyborg overlords.

Ob. Seinfeld

[Lord_Slepnir]

I forget the exact quote, but it goes something like:

Vet: The is squirrel is badly hurt. it will require about $10,000 worth of surgery, plus we have to fly in a special set of instruments from Switzerland.
George: i see. How much to put the thing down?
Vet: About 65 cents.
George: hmm..
* Georges girlfriend shoots him the evil eye *
George: Um...just asking

Maybe I don't get it, but there are hundreds of sighted cats that are put down every day in shelters around the US. How about giving your blind cat the gift of mercy and adopting a new cat?

NOTE: Poster may be bitter about (1) having a finance whose apartment is infested with a cat and (2) being allergic to the damn things.

Re:Ob. Seinfeld

[kfg]

Poster may be bitter about (1) having a finance whose apartment is infested with a cat and (2) being allergic to the damn things.

Well then you should have talked her into just shacking up; and if you think you're allergic now, just wait until she becomes a wife.

KFG

Schroedinger's Obligatory Cat Reference

[silentounce]

They've hit a snag in the research. It's quite puzzling. They've discovered that the cat can see and is blind at the same time.

Question for the experts

[Control Group]

I'm not a neurophysiologist, so perhaps the answer to this is obvious, but I've got a question: if the chip can detect light impulses and stimulate the optic nerve, why does there need to be cellular regeneration? Given time, wouldn't the brain learn to interpret those signals as optical input, just like it did with the rods and cones the eye was born with? Obviously, the "grain" and responsiveness of the photodiodes is much worse than that of the Mark I eyeball, but it's still a path for light information to get to the brain. The resultant "sight" would be far inferior to natural vision, but also better than blindness.

The human brain is nothing if not adaptable; I would think it could learn to use anything which was able to pump signals onto the optic nerve.

Or am I way off base?

Re:Question for the experts

[Raindance]

I'm not a neurophysiologist, so perhaps the answer to this is obvious, but I've got a question: if the chip can detect light impulses and stimulate the optic nerve, why does there need to be cellular regeneration? Given time, wouldn't the brain learn to interpret those signals as optical input, just like it did with the rods and cones the eye was born with? Obviously, the "grain" and responsiveness of the photodiodes is much worse than that of the Mark I eyeball, but it's still a path for light information to get to the brain. The resultant "sight" would be far inferior to natural vision, but also better than blindness.

The human brain is nothing if not adaptable; I would think it could learn to use anything which was able to pump signals onto the optic nerve.

I'm not a neurophysiologist either (perhaps BWJones will chip in here) but here's my two cents.

The chip can detect light impulses and stimulate the optic nerve, as you say- the article even mentions "We're placing it right where the photoreceptors are and if they're lacking, this is supposed to replace what they're doing." So why isn't this plug-and-play with our eyes- why do we need these implants to work via cellular regeneration?

Put simply, there is a limit to the eye's plasticity during maturity-- if these cats had been born with these chips implanted in their eyes, they could probably use them to see in some fashion (at lower quality, as you note). However, they're so far out of spec with the type of input given by normal photoreceptors (with which they're currently operating in parallel) that the mature eye/brain calibrated to normal photoreceptors simply tends to screen these inputs out.

Someday we'll understand the "spec" of the eye well enough for tech that plugs-and-plays with the rest of the eye, but currently we're limited to promoting the body's own healing, or, in cases of total blindness, just bypassing the eye and just stimulating the visual cortex directly (at very low resolution).

More about Cat eyes than human eyes

[sanjacguy]

My ex-wife's mother (what the heck do you call her, an ex-mother-in-law?) - worked at a highly prestigious university studying the optics of cat eyes. Back in the mid-nineties, we knew more about cat eyes through direct experimentation than human eyes, for obvious reasons. (Before you ask, yes, the cats were destroyed humanely during the process.)

Please keep in mind that there are many levels of clinical trials to go. If you wish to further this type of work, please consider donating your eyes upon your demise. Whether they're donated to science or to help someone else's vision more directly, you're still giving yourself so that others might not suffer. After all, it's not like you'll be using 'em any more.

The irony here is that my ex-wife loves cats.

I had a blind cat.

[funwithBSD]

She needed no sight. Before we rescued her she gave birth and raised a litter of kittens. By far she was the most effective killer I have ever seen, snatching bugs and birds out of the air with terrifying accuracy.

Her downfall was when threatened she never backed down I presume because she could not see where was safest. Stood her ground against pit bull that got loose. She had to be put down because of a broken back. The dog didn't make it either after she gutted his throat arteries.

PICTURES

[nilbog]

The only thing I look for with a story like this is a damn picture. So many stories talk about something I just want to see, but have no picture. Is it lazy journalism? Dammit, I just want to see a cat that looks like a borg, okay?