First Ever Bionic Eye Gets Approval from the DFA
After decades of research, a team of physicians and bioengineers from the US has finally developed a bionic eye that will help blind people see again.
The new invention, named Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System, is designed for older adults who have lost their vision due to Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), age-related macular degeneration, and other eye diseases that destroy the light-sensitive photoreceptors of the retina.
Even though the picture is far from perfect, Argus offers a great opportunity for blind people to be able to see again. In their clinical trials, recipients of the tool were able to read oversized letters of the alphabet and objects, and outline some details of a face. For a 70 year-old man who has lost his vision at the age of 20, it means a lot. “It was the first time he’d seen light in a half-century," said Wentai Liu, a bioengineering professor at the UCLA. Argus was just recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US.
The artificial retina project began in 1988 and was headed by Dr Mark Humayun, ophthalmologist and neurosurgeon at Duke University, and now a faculty member at USC. He then invited Liu to engineer the artificial retina. The young engineer was very hesitant at first, as he didn’t know much about biology. But Dr Humayun handed him a six-inch thick medical manual on retina. “The learning curve was very steep,” he said. But Liu was very happy about the end result of their experiment.
How does the bionic eye work?
The device operates using a very small video camera mounted on a pair of eye glasses which is connected to a tiny yet very powerful microchip. Information of an image is delivered to a microprocessor worn on the user’s waistband. Once the information reached the microprocessor, the microprocessor then transmits electronic signals to a fingernail-sized computer chip made up of 60 circuits. The chip stimulates the nerve cells in the retina to send electrical signals to the optic nerve, and all the way to the visual cortex in the brain. Lastly, the brain creates a composite image out of the information it receives.
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