A new device to help the blind see. A Stanford research team has paired with Pixium Vision to give sight to the blind. Their new implant may allow the blind 20/120 vision with infrared light. (via Pixium Vision)
It seems that a miracle is in the making with the release of a new retinal implant prosthetic that allows the blind to see. Clinical trials wont until 2016, but that is practically only 6 months away: great news for hopeful candidates who want to regain their sight.
While there are already prosthetics out there that gives the blind some sight back, they are not very good since they only give up to 20/500 vision. Basically, this allows the blind to avoid walking into the street, avoiding objects, and other dangerous collisions. However, it doesn’t really allow them to do anything else.
This new retinal implant can give the blind 20/120 vision which would make the blind, technically no longer blind - at least according to the US legal definition of blindness. Within testing with rates, the prosthetic gave them 20/250 vision, but the addition of goggles to transfer images will bring the vision for humans up to 20/120. I suppose we will know about how it works in practice after the trials in 2016.
The design was created by a research team at the Daniel Planker’s Lab in Stanford. They have paired up with a French company called Pixium Vision to actually start working on bringing this technology to the market. Their designs have already been featured at the IEEE Neural Engineering meeting in France, and has a published paper in Nature.
The design for the retinal implant is really ingenious and quite streamlined in its approach. For one thing, their design entirely does away with the need for batteries. In a very economical design, they are using infrared light to simultaneously send light signals and to power the chip implant. While using ambient light may have worked, they chose to use infrared light because it could enable them to power the device and make it easier for users. The chip sits behind the retina and acts like synthetic photoreceptor cells by responding to light in the environment by sending electric signals to other cells that trigger optic nerves to send this data to the brain. The chip is design to send specialized signals to different cells to have the best effect on the users’ vision. Right now, the chip has 70-micron pixels.
The clinical trial on humans will include a pair of goggles that contain a camera and a tiny processor that will convert recordings of the surroundings into an infrared image that will then be beamed into the eyes via the neural implant.
While the infrared light is more powerful than natural light, the researchers assure that the light used is below the safety standards. If this proves successful, users will be able to read the largest letter at the top of an eye chart, which is very impressive compared to current alternatives.
Pixium Vision isn’t the only one working in this market vertical. An Australian company called Bionic Vision is also planning clinical trials next year.
Hopefully a working product will be available on the market by 2017, for those that aren’t lucky enough to be part of a trial.
C
See more news at: