Optoelectronic Retinal Prostheses for Restoring Sight to the Blind
From: Lockheed Colloquium - 05/13/2010

Retinal degeneration leads to blindness due to loss of photoreceptors, while
the inner retinal neurons are often preserved to a large extent. Using an
implanted microelectrode array, visual information can be reintroduced by
electrical stimulation of the remaining retinal circuitry.  

In a prosthetic system being developed at the Hansen Experimental Physics
Laboratory, the processed images of the visual scene captured by the camera
are projected from a micro liquid crystal display (LCD) mounted in the video
goggles onto a subretinally implanted microphotodiode array. Each
photovoltaic pixel in the array converts the received pulsed near-infrared
light (900 nm) into biphasic pulses of electric current that directly
stimulate retinal neurons. Thousands of pixels in the implant can be
activated simultaneously and independently, while preserving a natural link
between eye movements and image perception. This presentation will describe
the current status of system development and testing, and the resolution
limits attainable with this technology. 

Links:
Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory
http://hepl.stanford.edu/index.html

Palanker Lab: BioMedical Physics
http://www.stanford.edu/~palanker/lab/index.html

Optoelectronic Retinal Prosthesis
http://www.stanford.edu/~palanker/lab/retinalpros.html