The Orion is a new implant that uses a small camera and video processing unit to help blind patients regain some of their sight. Renderings of the Orion device. (Image credits: Second Sight)
After a car accident left him completely blind, Jason Esterhuizen thought he would never see again. But a new bionic eye has helped Esterhuizen regain some of his sense of sight. He’s just one of six people who are currently testing out Second Sight’s new experimental device called the Orion. The device is made to help those who have gone blind from a wide array of causes, such as glaucoma, optic nerve injury, and disease. The new devices fix a big problem with similar bionic eyes: almost no one is able to use them.
When using Orion, it looks like a pair of sunglasses equipped with a small camera and video processing unit (VPU). But it’s actually a brain implant the size of a postage stamp that takes video footage, converts it into electrical activity, and stimulates the pattern onto the visual processing centers of the brain. So yes, that means getting brain surgery – most bionic eye devices on the market don’t require additional surgery. And this comes with its own risks to consider, but people like Esterhuizen didn’t hesitate at the chance to try it out.
“With the current system we’re testing, you don’t even need to have eyes for the device to work,” said Nader Pouratian, the University of California, Los Angeles neurosurgeon who implanted Esterhuizen’s Orion.
So far, results are promising. Esterhuizen and the other patients have regained a limited amount of their vision, but there are some limitations. They still can’t see color, shapes, or clear edges, and they can’t read text. Yet, they can recognize moving objects, can distinguish between light and dark, and have some degree of depth perception.
During testing, patients have to go through various exercises, including one where they have to look at a black computer screen and point to a white square that appears intermittently in different locations. Most of the time, they can find the square without any trouble. There’s still a long way to go for the patients to fully regain their vision, but now they’re able to perform everyday tasks they couldn’t do before.
Orion has helped these patients regain some of their sight, but the range is very limited. For safety reasons, the implant only uses one electrode array to stimulate the left side of the brain. Because of this, they can only distinguish visual cues from their right-side field of vision. Second Sight has plans to implant electrodes on both sides of the brain as long as one array proves to be safe. The company is also working on improving the technology to enhance the resolution of range of vision.
While it sounds impressive, Orion isn’t the only company developing an advanced bionic eye. Stanford scientists are working on something similar that has enough resolution to allow people to read text. But people like Esterhuizen are thrilled with the results. With the new implant, he says he feels safer leaving his apartment alone since he can see when cars are approaching. He can also sort laundry and even find certain objects in his home. Though it’s a long road ahead, there’s no denying how Orion has changed people’s lives so far.
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