Bionic Eye To Undergo Clinical Tests In 2013

Sight could be restored to hundreds of visually impaired people across the globe with the invention of a bionic eye, developed by a team of international scientists at the Monash University.

Researchers claim the retinal implant is ready for undergoing human trials sometime during the next year.

A bionic eye is a photocell developed using space technology, intended to partially restore lost vision or amplify existing vision.

The device is specially designed to help people who have gone blind through traumatic injury or tumours. Eventually the bionic eye will also be effective against ailments such as glaucoma and retinal disorders.

The eye diseases damage the eyes' photoreceptors, the cells at the back of the retina that perceive light patterns and pass them on to the brain, where the impulse patterns are then interpreted as images.

"We have made significant progress since beginning last year and are confident that we will have a device to treat the majority of patients who are clinically blind," said team leader Arthur Lowery, director of the Monash University`s Monash Vision Group (MVG).

The working of bionic eye
According to experts, the implant will stimulate the vision areas of the brain mimicking the stimulation they would normally receive through the optic pathway.

It will send signals from a camera to an electronic unit which is inserted into the surface layers of the brain at the back of head where the V1 vision region resides.

Arthur Lowery stated, "Our device will directly stimulate the brain's vision centre using a miniaturized implant. The implant is fed with signals from a camera that have been processed to extract the most useful information, depending on what the user needs.

He explained, "The implant has many tiles, each with 45 electrodes, designed to give over 650 pixels in all. Due to the powerful and adaptable signal processing, we believe this number of electrodes can provide invaluable situational awareness to the user. The device can also be tuned for use in different environments, both indoors and outdoors."

However, unlike other bionic eye technologies, the MVG device does not need a functioning eyeball or optic nerve or visual pathways from the eye to the brain.