Artificial Retina helps blind mice see

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Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York say they've successfully decoded the brain signals that allow mice to see. Using this information with a new type of prosthetic retina, they were able to restore vision in mice.

Next up, the researchers say they've cracked the code of a monkey retina, which is nearly identical to that of a human. If the prosthesis works on monkeys too, the researchers think they may eventually be able to help people who've lost their eyesight.

For the study, scientists first had to decode the process that allows the retina to process signals from photoreceptors that take in light in the eye. The signals are then transported by the retina's ganglion cells to the brain, where they're translated into meaningful images. When a person has a disease of the retina that may cause blindness, the retinal circuitry and photoreceptors are often destroyed, but the ganglion cells are usually spared.

Existing retinal prosthetic technology works with these remaining cells and may restore rough fields of vision. Nirenberg said it was not only important to stimulate the remaining ganglion cells with a prosthetic but also to stimulate them with the correct code that the brain would typically receive from a retina that's working normally.

students, Chethan Pandarinath, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, got to work and cracked the code. They turned it into a set of mathematical equations that mimic how light patterns turn into electrical impulses, and implemented these equations on a "chip" that converted images that come into the eye into streams of electrical signals.

The researchers then combined the chip with a miniprojector that converts the electrical signals into light signals. Those messages are sent to the remaining ganglion cells, which then transmit the code to the brain.

This is impressive and show just how much we can archieve with technology.








article by  cnet