Electronic eyes: add bright hope for blind people

Researchers hope to develop this device to help blind people travel on their own.

Scientists have taken an important step in helping people with vision problems live an independent life after an Australian blind woman has recovered some eyesight thanks to the attachment of electronic eyes. .

Dianne Ashworth, who suffered severe vision loss due to hereditary retinitis pigmentosa, was fitted with an electronic eye test in May at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.

The electronic eye was able to move a month later. Today, scientists have published research results.

Today, Bionic Vision Australia (BVA), the group of electronic eyedrains
reported their success in designing the "world's first" electronic eye model .

Dianne Ashworth said: 'I am really happy when the eye finally moves after my waiting days. I wore those eyeglasses and didn't know what I was waiting for. I didn't know if anyone knew what I was about to see. Then all of a sudden, I was happy when I could see a little light and somehow it was like a bright piece. "

She added: 'I remember I burst into happiness when a bigger image appeared before my eyes. I didn't expect much but after all it was a miracle ".

The electronic eye is designed, built and tested by BVA, a research group funded in part by the Australian government. The device is equipped with two electrodes and a small cord connected from the back of the eye to a receptor attached behind the ear.

It is attached to the vascular membrane, the part close to the retina.

'Electronic stimulation device for the retina ,' said Dr. Penny Allen, a specialist surgeon who implanted an electronic eye sample. 'The electronic effects are transmitted through the device, then clicked. like retina, those forces affect the brain and create the image. "

Dr. Penn Allen (right) is doing eye exams for her
Dianne Ashworth (left), the first to receive an 'advanced' electronic eye .

The device helps restore basic vision, enabling patients to distinguish contrast contrasts as bright and dark objects.

Researchers hope to develop this device to help blind people travel on their own. Operating this device is quite simple, so surgeons around the world can learn it.

" We do not want to create a device that is too complicated in surgical methods that are already difficult to learn," Ms. Allen said .

The researchers conducted a similar study at Cornell University (NewYork), but in mice with neuronal decoding, which is the pulse code that conveys information to the brain. That device helped restore blind eyesight to near normal levels.

How it works: electronic eyes use special transmitting glasses
come to an implant in the brain.The device has been successfully attached.

According to the World Health Organization, globally there are 39 million blind and 246 million people with visual impairments.

"What we're doing is restoring a kind of vision that can be distinguished from white and black, and we hope patients with severe vision loss can walk on their own , " Allen said.