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.'"

Comments

Wow

[DirtyCanuck]

I didn't see that one coming.

Hearing Implants?

Nope never heard of them

This is actually pretty cool

[kurokame]

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!

Re:This is actually pretty cool

[am 2k]

I think they should start implanting these now. Why make people wait for more trials? What's the worst that can happen? The person is already blind.

Well, I'm a complete noob when it comes to medical stuff, but I can think of three things:

• Permanent damage to the nerves, removing the option for using any future improved version of this implant.
• Brain damage, since this implant has a direct connection to the most sophisticated instrument known to man. Just send a few milliamps too much over there and it's partially fried.
• An infection, killing the person (since you can't just cut off the head like it's done with arms and legs in extreme situations).

Re:This is actually pretty cool

[clone53421]

I can only assume no one's that excited by huge sight-replacing devices with 512 "taxel" resolution*, except as a step toward better things.

*I've tried to imagine this and even asked Google to come up with an image that showed what this might 'look' like and come up with nothing

What I found indicated that the 512 taxels are arranged in a 32x16 grid (a 4x2 arrangement of 8x8 separate electrode grids).

Obviously it’s tactile, not visual, but I took an image off google images, reduced it to 32x16, grayscaled it, and scaled it back up using the Sinc (Lanczos3) method. This was the result.

What is it, exactly?

[Nirvelli]

The Abstract has more technical details, such as the fact that this chip is externally-powered, and has a "38 × 40 pixels" resolution.

People that 'went blind'

[splutty]

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.

Re:People that 'went blind'

[delinear]

Earlier than that - George Stratton was doing this one-hundred and twenty years ago. His experiment involved covering one eye and inverting the image in the other (the apparatus he used at the time was too heavy to do both eyes 24 hours a day). He found after 4-5 days everything looked the right way around, but if he concentrated on objects they would reverse. Other than that he could move around and operate as normal. Upon removing the device it was only a few hours until his sight returned to normal.

Mice

[dintech]

I assume pre-tests were done on 3 blind mice? /ducks...

Yeah, yeah

[smchris]

It seems like one researcher or another has been twiddling with technologies like this now and then as one-off's for literally DECADES now. Will it ever make it into an on-going clinic?

I got an "insightful" for my jaded disillusionment the last time /. reported on one of these experiments, what, maybe five years ago. Can I get another "insightful" for still being disillusioned that these "cool hacks" will ever see production?
 

Re:In the land of the blind...

[mcgrew]

Once again reality has trumped Star Trek with an eye implant -- there's now no reason for La Forge to wear that visor.

Reality trumped Star Trek with an eye implant before. McCoy gave Kirk reading glasses for his age-related presbyopia because he was allergic to the eye drops that soften the lens (they don't have those... yet). But they've been implanting mechanical lenses since 2003; I have one in my left eye. McCoy could have just beamed Kirk's biological lenses out and beamed the mechanical lenses in. I went from being extremely nearsighted and farsighted at the same time (age related presbyopia), wearing both contacts and reading glasses, to better than 20/20. Of course, since we don't have transporters, invasive surgery is required. This retinal implant would require even more invasive surgery.

Of all the nerdy devices I have and have had, the implanted lens is my favorite.

Give them time and this retinal implant may surpass normal vision like the lens implant does.

Oh yeah -- you will be assimilated! Resistance is futile!