New Retinal Implant Enables Blind People to See Shapes and Objects

A group of researchers out of Germany is working on developing an electronic retinal prostheses that will allow some blind people regain vision. This treatment is for patients suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease. This disease causes the light receptors within the eye to stop functioning. Due to the impaired light receptors, patients have decreased vision in low light, can lose their peripheral vision, and some can become completely blind. The implant will allow these people to partially regain vision. The implant, known as a sub-retinal implant, is placed directly below the retina. It basically replaces the light receptors, but still uses the eye's natural image processing capabilities. They already have devices that sit outside the retina and serve somewhat the same purpose, but do to the location they can't use the eye's intact abilities. People that use these must wear a special type of camera with a processing unit to translate the images. This allows for the patient to bypass the earlier stages of vision. This sub-retinal implant has more light receptors and is able to develop much clearer images than seen through other similar devices. This technology could possibly help 200,00 people by giving them vision without wearing all the extra hardware.

This topic is interesting to me because I have had many eye problems. They make many every day tasks much more difficult. Many people are affected by numerous different eye disorders, so this is a very important field. After graduation, I am planning on pursuing a career either in opthamology, or some sort of research.