Slashdot Mirror
Chip Allows Blind People To See
crabel writes "3 blind people have been implanted with a retinal chip that allowed them to see shapes and objects within days of the procedure. From the article: 'One of the patients surprised researchers by identifying and locating objects on a table; he was also able to walk around a room unaided, approach specific people, tell the time from a clock face, and describe seven different shades of gray in front of him.'"
Firstly, it's probably going to be 50 years before this turns into an actual medical procedure rather than a proof-of-concept experiment. Let's just get that out of the way.
So what they're doing is taking people with a defective retina, and adding a synthetic one. The retina normally receives photons and sends a signal along the optic nerve. What they're doing is implanting a silicon photoreceptor behind the retina of people whose retinas aren't doing the job. The chip receives the photons and sends an electrical signal, serving the same function as a "healthy" retina to some fidelity. The results are sort of low-fi since (a) it's just a proof of concept trial, and (b) the retina is a horrendously complex photodetector so it will take a lot of work to approach that in an implantable device. But dude, blind people. Seeing. Go, science!
The Abstract has more technical details, such as the fact that this chip is externally-powered, and has a "38 × 40 pixels" resolution.
One caveat that seems to be missing in the summary, is that this was done with people that used to have normal eyesight, which degenerated into blindness.
Obviously the fact that the brain already recognizes shaped, forms, and knows how to 'see' makes a huge difference.
For people having been born blind, this sort of research might eventually help, but this would take all the visual stimulation and training that a small child gets as well, with brains that are not that of a small child, so will take a long time to adapt, unfortunately.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.