Scientists Reverse Engineer Animal Brains To Create Bionic Prosthetic Eyes 96
MrSeb writes "Utilizing neuroscience, gene therapy, and optogenetics, a pair of researchers from Cornell University have created a bionic prosthetic eye that can restore almost-normal vision to animals blinded by destroyed retinas. Prosthetic eyes have been created before, but for the most part these have been dumb prosthetics — chips that wire themselves into the ganglion cells behind the retina, which are the interface between the retina and optic nerve. These chips receive optical stimuli (via a CMOS sensor, for example), which they transmit as electrical signals to the ganglion cells. These prosthetic eyes can produce a low-resolution grayscale field that the brain can then interpret — which is probably better than being completely blind — but they don't actually restore sight. The Cornell prosthetic eye however, developed by Sheila Nirenberg and Chethan Pandarinath, is a much closer analog to a real eye, almost completely restoring sight in mice — and within 1 or 2 years, humans (PDF)."
Re:Ok... (Score:4, Informative)
IBM simulates entire cat, mouse and rat brain [scientificamerican.com]
Re:Ok... (Score:4, Informative)
And your evidence that it couldn't be done is what exactly? Just because you say so is not evidence.
If you are disputing what he said then you have to prove it can be done to say he is wrong.