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Bionic eye sorts retinal problems to return sight to the blind

Posted By: Bharat BhushanSharma | Oct 21 2009

Having seen a lot of vision implants for the blind, and some just to add to the cyborg aspect of it, we’re still to decide if these super-human efforts of the researchers will actually evolve the world for the visually impaired? Then those already successful cases scream on top of the voices and say you better affirm that, and because we do, here we get to you information a retinal prosthesis that aims to rectify retinal diseases, thus restoring vision.

implantable bionic eye
implantable bionic eye

The last implant idea for the eye we featured was MIT researchers attempt at implanting a microchip into the eyeball to replace the damaged cells and direct the visual input straight to the brain. In somewhat similar stride, Second Sight in Sylmar, California, has developed a bionic eye that can help restore vision to people who've been blinded by retinal diseases. Because retinal diseases cause blindness to the cells that line the back of the eye, which are used to send images as nerve impulses to the brain

How does it work:

A pair of video-camera embedded glasses has to be worn by the individual bearing the implanted eye. The camera herein is used to send visual signals to the bionic eye which using the electrodes attached to the patient's retina to send those nerve signals as electrical signals to the brain, thus allowing the patient to see.

More than 30 patients with macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa have been implanted with the experimental eye. In this it has been found that the patients' brain takes a little while to make sense of the new signals. And it is only over time that the eye and the brain understand the concept and are ready to respond help every patient retrieve the lost eyesight owing to retinal diseases.

Via: NPR