14 DAY TRIAL // European scientist has invented a set of spectacles and digital camera which connected to the optical nerve could restore the sight of thousands of people suffering from deterioration of the retina.
Over 300,000 Europeans whose sight is impaired as the thin layer of tissue which lines the eye and processes images deteriorates could benefit from this amazing medical discovery. The device has already been implanted in two patients, and the results are satisfactory.
A camera mounted on glasses sends images to an electronic device implanted behind the eye and stimulates the optic nerve which passes the information to the brain.
Based on the price of hearing devices known as Cochlear implants the new technology will cost about $US26,000.
The scientist behind this discovery say fifteen independent teams around the world are working on similar technology but the Belgian project, which coordinates the pan-European effort involving researchers in France and Germany, has the best results.
Similar discoveries have been made last year also, when the idea of an artificial retina was presented. A retinal prosthesis was conceived by neuro-ophthalmologist Joseph Rizzo, an implant that would take a wireless signal from a video camera, bypass the light receptors, and stimulate the healthy nerve cells directly to feed the image to the brain.
The implant is attached to the eye's surface with small sutures to keep it from shifting as the eye moves normally in its socket. The only thing that penetrates the eye is a little electrode array 10 micrometers thick, two millimeters wide, and three millimeters long. The array slips underneath the retina, where the electrodes stimulate surviving nerve cells in response to images from the camera, providing a small patch of vision.