In the effort to check rising vision impairment worldwide, scientists have produced a new prosthetic device that is designed to restore lost vision.

This is contained in a study published in ‘PLOS Biology’. The prosthetic device senses signals and transmits them to the brain by stimulating the cells in the retina – the area at the back of the eye that collects light focused from the lens.

The ‘bionic eye’ senses visual signals and transmits them to the brain, but requires extensive training to help patients’ brains learn to see again. Around the world, an estimated 40 million people are blind, with many of them reaching this condition after years of slow and progressive degeneration. The new study comes from researchers at an Italian public research university, the University of Pisa, who wanted to test the brain’s capacity to process artificial visual inputs.

They focused on seven patients with Retinitis Pigmentosa – an inherited disease that gradually leads to complete blindness. Retinitis pigmentosa is the name given to a group of inherited conditions of the retina that lead to a gradual progressive reduction in vision. With the development of this condition, difficulties with night vision and peripheral vision are the first things that are noticed. Later, reading vision, colour vision, and central vision are affected.

The age at which symptoms start is variable and the rate of deterioration often varies – for example with the different genetic types – but is generally very slow with changes occurring over years rather than months. In approximately half of all cases, there are other family members affected. The researchers then used functional magnetic imaging – technology that measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow.

This showed that patients learned to recognise unusual visual stimuli, such as bright flashes, and this ability led to increased brain activity. As the patient practiced seeing, the more their brain responded to visual stimuli using the prosthetic implant. The researchers, led by Maria Concetta Morrone, said: “The boost in response takes a long time and intensive training to appear, being stronger in those subjects who used the prosthetic device more intensely and for a longer time.”

The results suggest that after the device is implanted, the brain undergoes plastic changes to re-learn how to process the visual signals. The fact that after years of blindness, the brain still has some plasticity is highly promising for the further development of new prosthetic implants.

https://newtelegraphonline.com/new-chip-raises-hope-of-blindness-reversal/

May it come to fruition.