[Nfbf-l] World's only bionic eyes keep getting better Published March 21, 2013 FoxNews.com

[Alan Dicey]

World's only bionic eyes keep getting better
By Allison Barrie
War Games
Published March 21, 2013  FoxNews.com
article
The world's only bionic eyes -- implants that can bring sight to the blind -- keep getting better.
Created by Second Sight Medical Products and recently approved by the FDA, the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System  uses an implanted camera and computer to convert the world at large into electronic signals, enabling the brain to see.
It's the first implanted device that can provide sight to people 25 and older who have lost their vision from degenerative eye diseases like macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.
And results just published in the latest British Journal of Ophthalmology indicate they're even better than previously thought: Argus II enabled the 21 blind patients in a new study to locate and identify objects and people -- and even read.
About 75 percent of blind patients given these new bionic eyes were able to correctly identify single letters. More than half of those with Argus II were able to read four-letter words.
Approximately 1.5 million people around the world and about 100,000 Americans are affected by the inherited disease retinitis pigmentosa,  which damages the eyes' photoreceptors -- cells at the back of the retina that perceive light patterns and pass them on to the brain in the form of nerve impulses.
The brain takes these impulses and interprets them as images. Retinitis pigmentosa causes gradual loss of these light-sensing cells and potentially blindness.
Breakthroughs like the Argus II  are also critical in pushing innovation that may help those with visual impairment due to other causes. For example, in the military there were 182,525ambulatory and another 4,030 hospitalized eye injuries reported between 2000 and 2010.
How does the Bionic Eye work?
In healthy eyes, the rods and cones in the retina, called 
photoreceptors, take light and turn it into tiny electrochemical 
impulses. These impulses are
sent through the optic nerve to the brain for decoding into images.

When the photoreceptors stop working effectively, this initial 
conversion process fails and the brain can't translate the light. The 
Argus II implant bypasses
disease-damaged photoreceptors altogether.

The system has three parts: a small electronic implant, a tiny camera 
and a video processing unit.

A small electronic device is first implanted in and around the eye. The 
patient then wears glasses that have a built-in video camera; it 
captures the surroundings
and sends video to a small computer the patient wears, called a 
video-processing unit (VPU).

The VPU processes the video into instructions that are sent back to the 
glasses via a cable and then wirelessly transmitted to the implant in 
the eye.
Electrodes there emit small electrical pulses that stimulate the 
retina's remaining cells, sending the visual information along the optic 
nerve to the
brain.

The brain perceives light patterns from this data, which patients learn 
to interpret -- giving them back their sight.

Beyond Bionic Eyes
There are several other promising ways to restore sight in a patient 
that has lost his or her vision.
According to results published in the journal Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences, an Oxford University team has made 
progress in a technique
that has the body rebuild the retina to restore sight.

They believe studies with mice show promise for treating people with 
degenerative eye disease.

In their approach, they inject "precursor" cells into the eye that 
create the building blocks of a retina. Within two weeks of the 
injections, a retina
had formed.

Using this technique, totally blind mice had their sight restored and 
similar results had already been achieved with night-blind mice.

Meanwhile, research published in Nature by professor Robin Ali showed 
that transplanting cells could restore vision in night-blind mice and 
that the same
technique worked in a range of mice with degenerated retinas.

It is hoped that eventually a doctor could put the cells in and 
reconstruct the entire light-sensitive layer of a human as well.
At Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, there are trials underway using 
human embryonic stem cells in patients with Stargardt's disease.

Early results look safe and promising, but it will take several years 
for it to become available.

Ballet dancer turned defense specialist Allison Barrie has traveled 
around the world covering the military, terrorism, weapons advancements 
and life on
the front line. You can reach her at
wargames at foxnews.com
  or follow her on
Twitter @Allison_Barrie.
article end

-- 
With Best Regards,
Alan Dicey
Miami, Florida
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