Retinal Device Restores Sight in Mice
More than 20 million people around the world have vision loss or blindness because of retinal degenerative diseases. The diseases mainly damage the photoreceptors, light detecting cells, of the retina but spare the ganglion cells, delivers the signals to the brain for processing.
Prosthetics have been used to try to stimulate the ganglion cells which helps the patient see a limited amount of light and shapes. By stimulating more ganglion cells the resolution becomes clearer. But the challenge of this, is stimulating the cells in a way that will change the images into signals the brain can process.
In recent research conducted by Dr. Sheila Nirenberg and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Chethan Pandarinath of Weill Cornell Medical College, they created a 3-part prosthetic system that gave mice the same level of output in the retina. The core innovation of this developing prosthetic is the "encoder" with converts images to electrical pulses. The electrical pulses are then changed into light pulses by a mini-projector. Then the light-sensitive proteins, which are implanted onto the ganglion cells through genetic engineering, are stimulated by the light pulses. The ganglion cells delivers these light-based pattern signals to the brain for processing. The prosthetic generates an output like a normal retina would.
The researchers conducted an experiment where they implanted electrodes near the ganglion cells of normal mice, mice with the encoder prosthetic, and mice with the standard prosthetic. The mice's were then shown various images and the output was collected. The results of mice's with the standard prosthetic showed output patterns different from the normal. Yet, the results of mice's with the encoder prosthetic showed outputs patterns similar to the normal mice. The encoder prosthetic collected enough output for the team to reconstruct several images including faces. This is a major breakthrough because of the potential benefit it can have on many people with blindness. It also opens up new innovating ways of research for prosthetics.
http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/august2012/08272012sight.htm
Prosthetics have been used to try to stimulate the ganglion cells which helps the patient see a limited amount of light and shapes. By stimulating more ganglion cells the resolution becomes clearer. But the challenge of this, is stimulating the cells in a way that will change the images into signals the brain can process.
In recent research conducted by Dr. Sheila Nirenberg and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Chethan Pandarinath of Weill Cornell Medical College, they created a 3-part prosthetic system that gave mice the same level of output in the retina. The core innovation of this developing prosthetic is the "encoder" with converts images to electrical pulses. The electrical pulses are then changed into light pulses by a mini-projector. Then the light-sensitive proteins, which are implanted onto the ganglion cells through genetic engineering, are stimulated by the light pulses. The ganglion cells delivers these light-based pattern signals to the brain for processing. The prosthetic generates an output like a normal retina would.
The researchers conducted an experiment where they implanted electrodes near the ganglion cells of normal mice, mice with the encoder prosthetic, and mice with the standard prosthetic. The mice's were then shown various images and the output was collected. The results of mice's with the standard prosthetic showed output patterns different from the normal. Yet, the results of mice's with the encoder prosthetic showed outputs patterns similar to the normal mice. The encoder prosthetic collected enough output for the team to reconstruct several images including faces. This is a major breakthrough because of the potential benefit it can have on many people with blindness. It also opens up new innovating ways of research for prosthetics.
http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/august2012/08272012sight.htm
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