French Regulators Approve Human Trial of a Bionic Eye
From: IEEE Spectrum - 10/26/2017
By: Emily Waltz

Five people with severe vision loss will have an experimental chip implanted
in their eyes to help them see. French regulators last week approved the
trial of the bionic vision implant, which will be placed in people with an
advanced type of retinal disease called dry age-related macular degeneration,
or dry AMD.

Developed by Pixium Vision in Paris, the wireless chip acts as a conduit of
communication between the eye and the brain using electrical stimulation. The
trial represents the first time such a chip has been used to treat dry AMD,
the leading cause of vision loss in people over age 50.

The 2 x 2 millimeter square implant is 30 microns thick—about a third of the
thickness of a human hair. It is surgically implanted under the retina, or
subretinal space. To function, it must be paired with an external camera and
a pocket-sized computer.

The user wears a pair of glasses equipped with a camera that senses changes
in the visual scene. The image is transmitted to the pocket computer, which
transforms the visual events into invisible near-infrared light. The computer
pulses those signals back to the glasses, which projects the invisible light
beam on the retina and the implanted chip. The chip then converts the signals
into electrical current, stimulating nearby bipolar cells. That stimulation
kickstarts a pathway of commucommunication that travels to the optic nerve
and eventually to the brain.

Read the entire article at:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/bionics/french-regulators-approve-human-trial-of-a-bionic-eye

Links:
Pixium Vision
http://www.pixium-vision.com/en

Pixium Vision receives approval for First-in-Human Clinical Trial of PRIMA,
  its miniaturized sub-retinal implant
http://www.pixium-vision.com/file_bdd/dynamic_content/file_pdf_pdf_en/1508344285_Pixium-PRIMAFIH-GB-final.pdf

Photovoltaic Retinal Prosthesis for Restoring Sight to the Blind
http://web.stanford.edu/~palanker/lab/retinalpros.html