Subretinal electronic chips allow blind patients to read letters and combine them to words
By E. Zrenner, K. Bartz-Schmidt, H. Benav, D. Besch, A. Bruckmann, V. Gabel, F. Gekeler, U. Greppmaier, A. Harscher, Steffen Kibbel and 9 more. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences, 2010
821 citations recorded by the source corpus.
A light-sensitive, externally powered microchip was surgically implanted subretinally near the macular region of volunteers blind from hereditary retinal dystrophy. The implant contains an array of 1500 active microphotodiodes (‘chip’), each with its own amplifier and local stimulation electrode. At the implant's tip, another array of 16 wire-connected electrodes allows light-independent direct stimulation and testing of the neuron–electrode interface. Visual scenes are projected naturally through the eye's lens onto the chip under the transparent retina. The chip generates a corresponding pattern of 38 × 40 pixels, each releasing light-intensity-dependent electric stimulation pulses. Subsequently, three previously blind persons could locate bright objects on a dark table, two of whom could discern grating patterns. One of these patients was able to correctly describe and name objects like a fork or knife on a table, geometric patterns, different kinds of fruit and discern shades of grey with only 15 per cent contrast. Without a training period, the regained visual functions enabled him to localize and approach persons in a room freely and to read large letters as complete words after several years of blindness. These results demonstrate for the first time that subretinal micro-electrode arrays with 1500 photodiodes can create detailed meaningful visual perception in previously blind individuals.
Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Electrical and Electronic Engineering
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8171b339a45b60f4688661aa6f3edc51b25d2c28
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In Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
In Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Citations in the corpus
- Retinal Prosthesis (2014, methodology): “12 patients were implanted with experimental RI system[18].”
- Flexible electronics under strain: a review of mechanical characterization and durability enhancement strategies (2016, background): “Within the body, flexible electronic devices are also being investigated as neural interfaces for mapping brain activity [109, 127], restoring motor function by stimulating spinal neurons [109, 128] or restoring vision in the eye [129].”