[nfb-talk] Fw: Implanted chip 'allows blind people to detect objects'

[Kenneth Chrane]

What do you think about this Article?
Ken Chrane

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Lela Behee 
To: venetian-blind at googlegroups.com 
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 2:38 AM
Subject: Implanted chip 'allows blind people to detect objects'


Though this may not be helpful for those of us who have prosthetic eyes and so have no retina, what a very exciting leap forward this is in technology!
Praise our Lord!!


2 November 2010 Last updated at 20:49 ET
Implanted chip 'allows blind people to detect objects'
By Neil Bowdler Science reporter, BBC News

Miikka Terho is given the task of reading letters which together misspell his
own name
A man with an inherited form of blindness has been able to identify letters and
a clock face using a pioneering implant, researchers say.
Miikka Terho, 46, from Finland, was fitted with an experimental chip behind his
retina in Germany. Success was also reported in other patients.

The chip allows a patient to detect objects with their eyes, unlike a rival
approach that uses an external camera.

Details of the work are in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Professor Eberhart Zrenner, of Germany's University of Tuebingen, and colleagues
at private company Retina Implant AG initially tested their sub-retinal chip on
11 people.
Some noticed no improvement as their condition was too advanced to benefit from
the implant, but a majority were able to pick out bright objects, Prof Zrenner
told the BBC.

However, it was only when the chip was placed further behind the retina, in the
central macular area in three people, that they achieved the best results.

Two of these had lost their vision because of the inherited condition retinitis
pigmentosa, or RP, the other because of a related inherited condition called
choroideraemia.

RP leads to the progressive degeneration of cells in the eye's retina, resulting
in night blindness, tunnel vision and then usually permanent blindness. The
symptoms can begin from early childhood.

The best results were achieved with Mr Terho, who was able to recognise cutlery
and a mug on a table, a clock face and discern seven different shades of grey.
He was also able to move around a room independently and approach people.

In further tests he read large letters set out before him, including his name,
which had been deliberately misspelled. He soon noticed it had been spelt in the
same way as the Finnish racing driver Mika Hakkinnen.

Three or four days after the implantation, when everything was healed, I was
like wow, there's activity," he told the BBC from his home in Finland.
"Right after that, if my eye hit the light, then I was able to see flashes, some
activity which I hadn't had.

"Then day after day when we started working with it, practising, then I started
seeing better and better all the time."

Soon Mr Terho was able to read letters by training his mind to bring the
component lines that comprised the letters together.

The prototype implant has now been removed, but he has been promised an upgraded
version soon. He says it can make a difference to his life.

"What I realised in those days was that it was such a great feeling to focus on
something," he says.

"Even having a limited ability to see with the chip, it will be good for
orientation, either walking somewhere or being able to see that something is
before you even if you don't see all the tiny details of the object."

Electrical impulses
The chip works by converting light that enters the eye into electrical impulses
which are fed into the optic nerve behind the eye.

It is externally powered and in the initial study was connected to a cable which
protruded from the skin behind the ear to connect with a battery.

The team are now testing an upgrade in which the device is all contained beneath
the skin, with power delivered though the skin via an external device that clips
behind the ear.

This is by no means the only approach being taken by scientists to try to
restore some visual ability to people with retinal dysfunction - what's called
retinal dystrophy.

A rival chip by US-based Second Sight that sits on top of the retina has already
been implanted in patients, but that technique requires the patient to be fitted
with a camera fixed to a pair of glasses.

Charities gave the news of the latest work a cautious welcome.

David Head, of the British Retinitis Pigmentosa Society, said: "It's really
fascinating work, but it doesn't restore vision. It rather gives people signals
which help them to interpret."

Peoria Blind Center
www.peoriablindcenter.org
Here is the name of the group on facebook: PeoriArea Blind People's Center.  Your friends on facebook are going to have to get on 
their facebook account and search for the group's name to join, or to see what we are about.


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