A bionic prosthetic eye that speaks the language of your brain. On the grand scale of things, we know so very little about the brain. Our thick-headedness isn’t quite cosmological in scale — we really do know almost nothing about the universe beyond Earth — but, when it comes down to it, the brain is virtually a black box. We know that stimuli goes in, usually through one of our senses, and motor neurons come out, but that’s about it. One thing you can do with a black box, however, is derive some semblance of a working model through brute force testing. Take prosthetic arms, for example: We don’t have a clue about the calculations that occur in the brain to trigger arm muscle motor neurons, but that doesn’t stop us from slapping some electrodes onto a subject’s bicep muscles and measuring the electric pulses that occur when you tell him to “think about moving your arm.”
Nirenberg did this until she produced mathematical equations that, with startling accuracy, encode images into neuron pulses that can be understood by an animal brain. Aging of Eyes Is Blamed in Circadian Rhythm Disturbances. GmbH | Ambulante Retinitis Pigmentosa Therapie | Hilft Sehvermögen zu erhalten: Homepage. Electric Eye: Retina Implant Research Expands in Europe, Seeks FDA Approval in U.S. Promising treatments for those blinded by an often-hereditary, retina-damaging disease are expanding throughout Europe and making their way across the pond, offering a ray of hope for the hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. left in the dark by retinitis pigmentosa.
The disease—which affects about one in 4,000 people in the U.S. and about 1.5 million people worldwide—kills the retina's photoreceptors, the rod and cone cells that convert light into electrical signals, which are transmitted via the optic nerve to the brain's visual cortex for processing. There is no effective treatment for the condition, but researchers are making great strides to remedy this through implants that stimulate still-active nerves in the retina, the layer of tissue at the back of the inner eye.
Looking ahead, Zrenner hopes to widen patients' field of vision further. "Because our chip has independent miniature photodiodes, we could arrange three of them in a row beneath the retina," he says. Subretinal electronic chips allow blind patients to read letters and combine them to words. Skip to main page content Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciencesrspb.royalsocietypublishing.org Published online before print 3 November 2010 doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.1747 22 May 2011 vol. 278 no. 1711 1489-1497 + Author Affiliations *↵Author for correspondence (ezrenner@uni-tuebingen.de). A light-sensitive, externally powered microchip was surgically implanted subretinally near the macular region of volunteers blind from hereditary retinal dystrophy.
The implant contains an array of 1500 active microphotodiodes (‘chip’), each with its own amplifier and local stimulation electrode. At the implant's tip, another array of 16 wire-connected electrodes allows light-independent direct stimulation and testing of the neuron–electrode interface. Posterior Capsular Opacity. Posterior Capsular Opacity Also referred to as: Posterior Capsular Haze; Secondary Cataract A posterior capsule opacity is the presence of a hazy membrane (capsule) just behind an intraocular lens implant. This condition is sometimes referred to as "secondary cataract," although the term is actually a misnomer.
Once a cataract is removed, it does not recur. Ophthalmologists generally prefer, at the time of cataract surgery, to place the intraocular lens implant in the same anatomical position that the natural lens (cataract) had, i.e., within the capsular bag. The natural lens of the eye is contained within a thin membrane known as a capsule. Fortunately, with the YAG laser, treatment of posterior capsule opacity is safe, effective, painless, and can often be performed as an in-office procedure. A YAG laser capsulotomy does pose additional risk, however, overall the procedure is extremely safe. Cataract Surgery with Crystalens - MY DETAILED EXPERIENCE! To paraphrase Dr. McCoy from Star Trek: "Damn it Jim, I'm an engineer/photographer, not an eye doctor! " ;-)So while my layman's research/experience may be helpful/informative, please consult a medical professional for your personal situation. While I've been fortunate to have had good health, my eyes have always been a bit of a problem.
As a child, I was quite near-sighted (ending up around -7 diopters of myopia- i.e. is that an "E"? Around age 40, it slowly started becoming more difficult to focus (when wearing correction) at close distances, especially in low light. In 2010 (age 46), I noticed that my right eye had more difficulty seeing things. I'm a bit of a photographer who analyzes camera gear (and shoots with my right eye - bummer!) Even with best correction, the cataract impairs the vision and causes all sort of visual aberrations beyond just blurriness due to the cloudy lens.
Alek's Left/Right Eye and 10-year old Kyle's right Eye ... all non-dilated and lit from windows Dr.