physicists and eye doctors have designed an optoelectronic retinal prosthesis system that can stimulate the retina with resolution corresponding to a visual acuity of 20/80.
The researchers hope their device may someday bring artificial vision to those blind due to retinal degeneration. They are testing their system in rats, but human trials are at least three years away.
Currently, there is no effective treatment for most patients with related macular degeneration (AMD), the major cause of vision loss in people over age 65, or retinitis pigmentosa (RP), the leading cause of inherited blindness.
However, if one could bypass the photoreceptors in the eye and directly stimulate the inner retina with visual signals, one might be able to restore some degree of sight.
To that end, the researchers directly stimulate the layer underneath dead photoreceptors in the eye using a system that consists of a tiny video camera mounted on transparent "virtual reality" style goggles, a wallet-sized computer processor, a solar-powered battery implanted in the iris and a light-sensing chip implanted in the retina.
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