Biological eyes for the blind

In the future people can see at night as clearly as day, with unexpected visual abilities. It is not science fiction story.

Armand R. Tanguay, Professor of Southern California University, who built the world's first implantable camera for the blind, said: " I dare not use superpowers, but a future blind man will have the possibilities that you and I don't have . "

Camera implanted in Professor Tanguay's eyes is part of a multi-million dollar USC project, supported by the US Energy Agency and the National Science Foundation, to develop artificial retina for the purpose of visual recovery. For those whose light-sensitive cells are burned by weakness or disease. The number of victims was 10 million.

The project is delivering results: Currently 6 blind volunteers bring electroplated silver or silicon implants into one of their two retinas. A digital camera mounted on the sunglasses will provide wireless images to this implant and its 16 electrodes continue to stimulate the retinal nerves to produce a sense of light in the brain.

Although the results show that the resolution is still low for 100 million pixels of healthy eyes, volunteer volunteers were able to distinguish the cup from the plate, bright and dark, and they could glimpse people. walk across the sidewalk.

" But we can do even better, " said USC Professor of Eye Surgery Mark Humayun, who paved the way for things to be implanted in the retina and is now the project leader.

Professor Humayun intends to implant a sensor consisting of 60 electrodes with a quadruple resolution in 2006, and a chip with 256 electrodes a few years later. Humayun's ultimate goal is 1,000 electrodes. " So the blind can recognize the human face and read the words ," Humayun said.

" Imagine imagining throwing the TV into the sea and still letting it work, " said Robert Greenberg, CEO of Second Sight, a retina implant company in California. The eye then filled with seawater could corrode the electrodes. The next problem is that electrical activity can dry nerves and blood vessels.

That's why the plan to put the camera in Tanguay's eyes is too bold. The device is about the size of an aspirin tablet made by Tangay, including a glassless glass lens and a CMOS sensor (additional metal oxide semiconductor) wrapped in a watertight tube.

The camera is placed right behind the pupil in a small bag where the normal glass of the eye is. With this camera device, blind people do not need to turn their heads to look around - what must be done for people with healthy eyes.

Tanguay also said that cameras with 3mm focal length will make objects appear more vivid, whether they are near or far away. In addition, the sensor will turn into infrared light for blind people to see clearly at night.

With Tanguay's " biological eye ", the blind will have a superior vision than the normal eye-starter.

The development of biological eyes

1929: German neurologist Otfird Foerster uses electricity to stimulate the visual cortex of blind volunteers. Result: they "see" small bright spots.

1968: Giles S. Brindley of Cambridge University implements 80 electrodes under the scalp of a blind 52-year-old woman. When she opened the electric current, she saw bright dots.

2004: Arman Tanguay and his colleague Noelle Stiles conducted the first experiment to implant a digital camera into the eye, replacing the dog's natural lens with a glass lens and a sensor.

2010: USC researchers will conduct the first blind test with a digital implant connected to a retinal implant with 256 electrodes.

2014: The 1,000-electrode implant will appear to allow volunteer blind people to recognize the human face and read 1/2 inch (1 inch = 2.54cm) for the first time.