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Medical Forum / General / Vision / September 2005

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AN: Artificial Retina Pioneer

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George - 31 Aug 2005 14:22 GMT
Bringing Sight To The Blind.

Dr. Mark Humayun has seen the world . Now he's helping others see it too
with the creation of an artificial retina.

Dr. Humanyun (Ph.D biomedical engineering, M.D. opthalmology)
has been named 2005 Innovator Of The Year by R&D magazine. The August
2005 issue has an excellent article about him and his research. Of
interest to me was that his grandmother inspired him to become an eye
surgeon and to specifically tackle the challenge of blindness. "My
grandmother went blind with diabetic retinopathy and that was my impetus
to get into opthalmology", he recalled.

So far he has implanted six patients, one as long as three years, with
the Model One implant. It consists of a small external camera to
transmit images to a 4mm x 5mm array with 16 electrodes. It is implanted
in the retina where the photoreceptors rods and cones are and it
transmits electrical pulses to the intact neural paths of the patient,
which in turn transmit the signals to the brain, allowing for sight.

The Model Two implant will have 60 electrodes and the Model Three will
have 1000 electrodes and both are on the drawing board. A number of
challenges must be overcome including the placement of the device on the
retina within 50 microns, about the size of a red blood cell.  But
solutions are being developed. See the full article for more details.

George
Robert Kopp - 01 Sep 2005 00:07 GMT
> Bringing Sight To The Blind.
>
> Dr. Mark Humayun has seen the world . Now he's helping others see it too
> with the creation of an artificial retina.

Fascinating. I suppose it will be a long time, though, before an artificial
retina has resolution anywhere approaching that of the natural one.

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Robert T. Kopp
http://analytic.tripod.com

The Real Bev - 04 Sep 2005 06:21 GMT
> > Bringing Sight To The Blind.
> >
> > Dr. Mark Humayun has seen the world . Now he's helping others see it too
> > with the creation of an artificial retina.

As an aside, he works at the Doheny Institute at USC.

> Fascinating. I suppose it will be a long time, though, before an artificial
> retina has resolution anywhere approaching that of the natural one.

Never can tell.  Computer improvements are made at a frightening rate.

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Cheers,
Bev
================================================================
"Some people say that when it rains it means that God is crying,
probably because of something that you did."      --Jack Handey

 
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