Australian "bionic eye" tested in Melbourne
Baku, September 1 (AZERTAC). An Australian bionic eye invention may give new hope to the blind, the Melbourne Herald Sun reported today, after a 54-year-old Victoria woman received and tested the device.
Implanted behind Dianne Ashworth`s left retina, the device contains 24 electrodes and relies on technology similar to cochlear, which has helped restore hearing to the deaf, reported the Herald Sun.
Bionic Vision Australia, a consortium of researchers funded by the Australian Research Council, reported on their website that the device, a "pre-bionic-eye," allows Ashworth a limited amount of vision. Here`s what she experienced, via Bionic Vision`s press release:
“I didn`t know what to expect, but all of a sudden, I could see a little flash…it was amazing. Every time there was stimulation there was a different shape that appeared in front of my eye."
The bionic eye, designed, built and tested by the Bionic Vision Australia, a consortium of researchers partially funded by the Australian government, is equipped with 24 electrodes with a small wire that extends from the back of the eye to a receptor attached behind the ear.
It is inserted into the choroidal space, the space next to the retina within the eye.
`The device electrically stimulates the retina,` said Dr Penny Allen, a specialist surgeon who implanted the prototype.
`Electrical impulses are passed through the device, which then stimulate the retina.
Those impulses then pass back to the brain, creating the image.`
Similar research has been conducted at Cornell University in New York by researchers who have deciphered the neural code, which are the pulses that transfer information to the brain, in mice.
There, researchers have developed a prosthetic device that has succeeded in restoring near-normal sight to blind mice.
According to the World Health Organization, 39 million people around the world are blind and 246 million have low vision.
`What we`re going to be doing is restoring a type of vision which is probably going to be black and white, but what we`re hoping to do for these patients who are severely visually impaired is to give them mobility,` Allen said.
Earlier this year, a British team implanted a similar implant for the first time, and have already placed it in two other patients who are waiting for their devices to `bed in` before they are switched on.
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