Chip Allows Blind People To See 231
crabel writes "3 blind people have been implanted with a retinal chip that allowed them to see shapes and objects within days of the procedure. From the article: 'One of the patients surprised researchers by identifying and locating objects on a table; he was also able to walk around a room unaided, approach specific people, tell the time from a clock face, and describe seven different shades of gray in front of him.'"
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't see that one coming.
Hearing Implants?
Nope never heard of them
In the land of the blind... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In the land of the blind... (Score:5, Interesting)
Once again reality has trumped Star Trek with an eye implant -- there's now no reason for La Forge to wear that visor.
Reality trumped Star Trek with an eye implant before. McCoy gave Kirk reading glasses for his age-related presbyopia because he was allergic to the eye drops that soften the lens (they don't have those... yet). But they've been implanting mechanical lenses since 2003; I have one in my left eye. McCoy could have just beamed Kirk's biological lenses out and beamed the mechanical lenses in. I went from being extremely nearsighted and farsighted at the same time (age related presbyopia), wearing both contacts and reading glasses, to better than 20/20. Of course, since we don't have transporters, invasive surgery is required. This retinal implant would require even more invasive surgery.
Of all the nerdy devices I have and have had, the implanted lens is my favorite.
Give them time and this retinal implant may surpass normal vision like the lens implant does.
Oh yeah -- you will be assimilated! Resistance is futile!
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Except La Forge can see in color...and all through out the spectrum.
It's pretty well established that the teleporter isn't used for medical uses... usually.
Now I have no idea WHY they don't. From it's description, using the teleporter should allow them to fix anything in the body, including aging.
OTOH, it was a series of moral plays, not a predictor of the future.
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or the use of the holodeck/hologram like they used once in voyager.
i still love in Stargate Atlantis - once given transporters - they did the obvious.. beam a nuke over to the enemy ship.. star-trek would never have done that.
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i still love in Stargate Atlantis - once given transporters - they did the obvious.. beam a nuke over to the enemy ship.. star-trek would never have done that.
Some captains would. http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Dark_Frontier_(episode) [memory-alpha.org]
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I work with someone who can't accept anesthesia of any kind found so far. Either her BP drops, or she starts throwing up while unconcious, or her heart almost stops, or she develops a terrible rash from the numbing items.
I assume (outside of movie reality) that for some reason, none of these techniques would work for Kirk or he was unwilling to undergo them. So... glasses.
I had lasik in 1997? 1998? It has been FRAKKIN AWESOME!!!!! Never regretted it for a second.
I can SEE at the beach. When I stop a d
Not a cure (for blindness) (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not a cure (for blindness) (Score:4, Informative)
Could you supply a source on the "[...]image processing centre which is a common form of blindness"? As far as I know, and yes IAAMD, eye-related conditions are by far the most common cause of blindness, whereas cortical blindness represents only a small fraction of the total blind population (significant, no doubt).
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Yes I think the OP is lumping congenital blindness with acquired blindness, where I assume the latter is much more closely related to injuries or diseases to the eye.
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I would imagine that there are more cases of blindness resulting from brain trauma (auto accident, etc) than congenital. Congenital blindness from birth is rare, blindness from injury to the eye or brain is not.
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We can cure several kinds of blindness or at least mitigate it.
There's an implantible mechanical lens that cures nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, and cataracts. Almost everyone who gets them gets near normal, normal, or better than normal vision.
But if there's nerve damage, or damage to the visual cortex in the brain, that's still incurable.
I wonder if this implant would help someone who had a detached retina and didn't get a vitrectomy soon enough? I had to undergo a vitrectomy, and it was a w
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I have a concern. The articles states zero effect on those people where the disease had progressed too far before the implant. I see nothing about this implant that will prevent further progression...
So whose to say after getting the invasive (and expensive surgery) - it won't just stop working in a few years when the disease gets bad enough anyway ?
This is actually pretty cool (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, it's probably going to be 50 years before this turns into an actual medical procedure rather than a proof-of-concept experiment. Let's just get that out of the way.
So what they're doing is taking people with a defective retina, and adding a synthetic one. The retina normally receives photons and sends a signal along the optic nerve. What they're doing is implanting a silicon photoreceptor behind the retina of people whose retinas aren't doing the job. The chip receives the photons and sends an electrical signal, serving the same function as a "healthy" retina to some fidelity. The results are sort of low-fi since (a) it's just a proof of concept trial, and (b) the retina is a horrendously complex photodetector so it will take a lot of work to approach that in an implantable device. But dude, blind people. Seeing. Go, science!
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We don't even need to match the quality of retina - even a hugely restricted sight, say a 50x50 black/white pixel sensor would be a life-changing experience to blind people, if that was available for mass-production and they could actually afford it.
Re:This is actually pretty cool (Score:4, Insightful)
I recall seeing something like that (low-res BW "implants") at least 5 or more years ago. Someone was actually able to drive a car around a parking lot with one.
This just seems like a more advanced version, and unlike another poster, I think they should start implanting these now. Why make people wait for more trials? What's the worst that can happen? The person is already blind. This is one of the things that bothers me about the FDA; if people are willing to take the risks to get a "cure" now, they shouldn't be stopped.
But even still, once surgery to correct lens shape was allowed, that procedure really took off... it didn't take 50 years for it to become commonplace. Certainly this is more invasive, but once it's approved, I really doubt people will let that stand in the way... after all, people who were nearsighted could still see with corrective lenses, but now we're talking about people who can't see at all.
Re:This is actually pretty cool (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they should start implanting these now. Why make people wait for more trials? What's the worst that can happen? The person is already blind.
Well, I'm a complete noob when it comes to medical stuff, but I can think of three things:
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Problem is you have to be able to assess the risk. We can think about some thing as relatively low risk but in fact they could be dangerous.
But I agree with you that final decision should be left to patient.
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There are medical studies going on right now, that are so important to me that I half considered investing a significant portion of my money (all of it really) in order to COPY what they are doing now.
For some conditions, people could not care less about the risks of the cure because the problem is several orders of magnitude worse.
Not my issue, but I've had Migraines, bad ones. But it's only 2-3 times per year (They can last 24 hours though). I've heard of some people who get them 2-3 times per WEEK! (A
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Re:This is actually pretty cool (Score:5, Interesting)
I can only assume no one's that excited by huge sight-replacing devices with 512 "taxel" resolution*, except as a step toward better things.
*I've tried to imagine this and even asked Google to come up with an image that showed what this might 'look' like and come up with nothing
What I found indicated that the 512 taxels are arranged in a 32x16 grid (a 4x2 arrangement of 8x8 separate electrode grids).
Obviously it’s tactile, not visual, but I took an image off google images, reduced it to 32x16, grayscaled it, and scaled it back up using the Sinc (Lanczos3) method. This was the result [ompldr.org].
Re:This is actually pretty cool (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's an animated gif using the same technique.
http://yfrog.com/fxlowresmuybridgeracehorsg [yfrog.com]
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You are extrapolating linearly.
For reference, 50 years ago integrated circuits were still brand new.
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It won't take near that long. I expect it to be pretty common in the next five years, and as sensor resolutions go up the people getting the surgery will have better and better vision. In fifty years people who get this implant will probably have better than normal vision. Hell, by then they'll probably be able to see in the dark.
It is low resolution now, but low resolution is a lot better than blindness.
Unless you're as old as me, you can't imagine the progress science and technology makes. When I was a ki
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At which point it's your brain's ability to process the incoming information that's the limiting factor. I wonder if covering the inside of your skull with electronics and interfacing auxiliary processors into brains might be the next big thing?
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50 years before we can just go get one? yea ..
proof of concept? no .. the proof was done several years ago with 1 person and if i remember right the resolution was either 9x9 or 10x10.. this is 1500 dots so at least 15x the resolution.
this is the next step - and i'm sure there will be plenty more.. you just have to take them one at a time.
to many people want to leap into the future and have what we can image now - but you can only do it with baby steps along the way.
First Wu-Tang (Score:4, Interesting)
Light is provided through sparks of energy
from the mind that travels in rhyme form
Givin sight to the blind
What is it, exactly? (Score:5, Informative)
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The last time there has been an article on the subject, we were at 9x9 pixels. I can infer that some parallel can be made with the general speed of progress in electronics and expect that within a quick decade it will be hi-res and not require too much power to be implanted with day-long batteries.
Also, inductive charging is quite an elegant solution in this context: no gore, all the joules.
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Why not simply use a small fuel cell and generate power from glucose and oxygen from bloodstream?
Game Boy Resolution (Score:2)
"I see..." (Score:2)
said the blind man to his deaf wife.
1 picture, 1000 words (Score:2)
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1500 diodes /1000 words = 1.5 diodes per word doesnt it?
Lets double check.. If we have 1000 words and we give each word 1.5 diodes, we would have a total of 1500 diodes.
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Yes, 1/1.5 = 0.67
You're doing diodes per word, he's doing words per diode.
People that 'went blind' (Score:5, Informative)
One caveat that seems to be missing in the summary, is that this was done with people that used to have normal eyesight, which degenerated into blindness.
Obviously the fact that the brain already recognizes shaped, forms, and knows how to 'see' makes a huge difference.
For people having been born blind, this sort of research might eventually help, but this would take all the visual stimulation and training that a small child gets as well, with brains that are not that of a small child, so will take a long time to adapt, unfortunately.
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Who knows, the child's brain may adapt better to the low resolution images. The child's brain may develop some sort of anti-aliasing capabilities.
It does more than that. Take yourself for example. You do know that there is a rather significant blind spot right in the middle of your vision right?
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One interesting caveat: eye projects the image on the retina upside-down and it's sent as such to the brain. The flipping is done fully "in software" and supposedly occurs only a few weeks after the child gains sight. It would be interesting to observe this effect in adult humans.
Re:People that 'went blind' (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember seeing a documentary of a study that did exactly that about twenty years ago... That person wore glasses 24/7 that flipped the image upside down. It took a while, but he adapted to it just fine. The problem was that when he took them off afterwards, the image was flipped again, so he had to go through all of it again :)
Re:People that 'went blind' (Score:5, Informative)
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To clarify, I saw that documentary twenty years ago. It was black&white without sound, so I guess it was the same study you dug out. Nice find!
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The experiment has been done with glasses that flip the scene before it enters the eye. After a few hours most adults don't notice much difference.
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You have to start somewhere though.
Correct, evidence from cochlear implants (Score:2, Insightful)
For people having been born blind, this sort of research might eventually help, but this would take all the visual stimulation and training that a small child gets as well, with brains that are not that of a small child, so will take a long time to adapt, unfortunately.
Right. Kids who receive cochlear implants at very young ages (best before 5, preferably around 1) and are enrolled in schools mostly focused on speech and hearing (rather than sign) tend to show dramatic results. Most of these kids are mainstreamed into their local school districts in the kindergarten/first/second grades with limited (if any) instructional support. Using the phone with no assistance is pretty typical.
People, like my wife, who are pre-lingually deaf and receive cochlear implants later in lif
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Exactly.
A lot of research has been done into sight/hearing/language, and the ideal age to do this is before 8 years old.
At that time the actual structure of your ear (drums, hammer, etc) will have evolved in such a way as to maximize what sounds you need to hear. (The 'joke' of chinese people not being able to pronounce an 'R' is actually not a joke, but the very simple result of there not existing an 'R' sound in the chinese language, so they simply can't hear it, because their hearing has never been attun
Appropriate? (Score:4, Funny)
Evolution, not revolution... (Score:2)
This, as my post title suggests, is not a revolution. It's an evolution of the existing tech. We've seen this before, but the achievable resolution is increasing. There's another project in Germany I read about recently where they're working on colour
Don't get me wrong, this is amazing work, and another step on the road to full Geordi's VISOR-like treatment for people that have an optic nerve but non-functioning eyes, but it's not a "new" thing, merely another refinement in the process
When the resolution
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Actually, I'd be quite interested in one that is not based on daylight. Think of it as input device, taking, say, HDMI signal on input, and outputting the video directly to optical nerves. Attach an external camera, or a computer, or a remote camera, or a video player... skipping the middle-man of display-light-eye-retina and feeding video data straight to the optical nerve.
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No way, I still need my analog hole!
Just what we need. HDCP in my eyeballs.
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I'd keep the better of my eyes bio.
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So maybe not HDMI (which would be wrong in any case) or it's ilk, but a design standard designed for the brain, with a neural interface to dictate what's in focus etc. instead of the retina.
We've already gotten good enough brainwave-reading to control a mouse cursor, or select menu items (or raise the wee ball thingy on the Star Wars Force toys), so this would be the way to go.
A visual interface on the retina/optic nerve. An "out" port on your head, so you can wear a camera array (a la Geordi) so you get s
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Seems like the right job for the device drivers.
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The retinal implant won't help if you're nearsighted or farsighted, or have astigmatism, but you can get a lens implant [slashdot.org] that cures all three of those. It costs about $6-7,000 per eye.
But it is invasive surgery. They stick a needle in your eye, send ultrasound down it to turn your eye's lens to mush, suck it out, and put the mechanical lens in through the needle.
It doesn't hurt, but it does kind of freak you out when they stick the needle in your eye (they don't knock you out for the operation).
It's a miracle! (Score:3, Insightful)
Stories like these always make me think of how science, technology and development delivers so many of the things promised but undelivered by religion. This story, healing the sick and making the blind see again, is an actual, real miracle, and an awesome one at that. Religion, in contrast, offers only false hope and perhaps some comfort for unfulfilled promises and a harsh reality. And yet so many millions pin their hopes on imagined gods, not human spirit and ingenuity. It continues to baffle me.
Even the most extreme things promised by religion, eternal life and/or an immortal soul, might be deliverable in some form by science one day. We can certainly create a paradise for ourselves. Compared to how the people who first imagined today's religions lived, one could argue that many of us are already living in paradise (or some beta version of it at least) and it's within reach for every human on earth, regardless of religion, if we continue to produce our own miracles.
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Sorry to use a 4chanism here, but;
Implying the religious wouldn't consider this a miracle.
Implying the religious think human ingenuity and its results aren't miraculous.
Implying the religious subscribe to the same mutual exclusivity between faith and science that you do.
There are some religious people who see miracles in toast and wonder how magnets work, sure. There's some religious people who perform neurosurgery, too, and subscribe to a scientific view of the world. Evidently being religious doesn't actually require the surrender of all mental faculties. I know Christian doctors who describe successful childbirth as simultaneously miraculous and the result of good science. The same doctors contribute money to soup kitchens or the educat
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The miracles of a religious neurosurgeon are still the result of human ingenuity and spirit. Her religious explanations of why adds nothing to the miracle of saving someone's life through brain surgery.
But you have a point in that religious people still can contribute to non-religous and real miracles. I didn't mean to imply that they don't. Of course many do, but still I don't see what positive contributions come from religion, besides personal motivation. Religion seems to cause much more problems in this
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Your tempered response is gratifying.
I agree that her religious explanations of why don't affect the how. In fact, that was my point; it seems to me much more a question of philosophy. There have been raging asshat stoics and subtle, brilliant stoics. Why blame stoicism for either?
I think you've hit the nail on the head when you say that you don't see what positive contributions come from religion. Many of the modern church's positive social effects are not headline news, while of course every alarming thin
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Someone defending religion with logical fallacys. Shocking.~
Many of those people do it because the want to improve the world. No god is needed for that. The idea that it's 'do works or make money' is a logical fallacy based on ignorance.
Many, many people do good without any need for your fiction.
Who is really moral: The person who need to remind themselves to do good for the people who don't need to congregate in order to do good?
It's like you only do good out of some sort of guilt or make it a contest.
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That was a good comment, thank you. I have experienced miracles, or if the athiests prefer, wildly improbably coincidences. I'll recount one here.
A couple of years ago the church I attended had people in the congregeation take the microphone and tell of something they praised God for. I took it one day, recounted how God gave me a surgeon to give me better than 20/20 vision after wearing coke bottle glasses all my life.
The sermon the preacher had prepared was about Jesus healing the blind man.
That night tha
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And it's completely wrong.
I challenge you to find one church that doesn't focus on hating something as a way to generate money.
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Meh (Score:2)
Mice (Score:5, Funny)
I assume pre-tests were done on 3 blind mice? /ducks...
Wild. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not much of a step from here to arbitrary, computer generated input.
how soon to working Tleilaxu Eyes? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=74 [technovelgy.com]
Impressive (Score:3, Insightful)
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Going from coke bottle glasses to reading a clock on the wall without them is indeed an amazing experience. I marvel today, four years after the surgery.
Didn't see that one coming... (Score:2)
Ears? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Yes, there are implants for the deaf.
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The equivalent device for the ear already exists for many years. It is called the cochlear implant [wikipedia.org].
Neato (Score:2)
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Quick! Close the analog hole! (Score:2, Interesting)
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Question (Score:2)
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Pretty long; I've had two eye surgeries, and was strictly informed that rubbing the eyes before they healed was very dangerous.
I'm pretty sure that this surgery would include a vitrectomy, which is what they do for a detached retina (my second eye surgery).
Yeah, yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like one researcher or another has been twiddling with technologies like this now and then as one-off's for literally DECADES now. Will it ever make it into an on-going clinic?
I got an "insightful" for my jaded disillusionment the last time /. reported on one of these experiments, what, maybe five years ago. Can I get another "insightful" for still being disillusioned that these "cool hacks" will ever see production?
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look around. Most of your life is filled with the end results one-offs. Former prototypes on Proof of concepts.
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They got it to the point where these folks are no longer blind, so I would expect it to happen in five years or less.
Note, however, that this isn't a panacea that will cure all blindness, just one form of blindness that only hits 200,000 out of the world's seven billion people.
What's really amazing is a CrystaLens implant. It's an artificial, mechanical lens that replaces the eye's natural lens, and it cures myopia (nearsightedness), presbyopia (farsightedness), astigmatism, and cataracts. Millions could be
Chip allows blind people to see (Score:3, Funny)
Human sight develops in the first 4 months of life (Score:2)
The wiring for sight is developed during the third and fourth month of life. If the visual system is not stimulated during this time, the ability to form the connections for sight are lost forever.
So unless you catch it at birth then it would be too late for people born blind. If it was caught at birth babies minds are able to adapt the way they process new stimulus much more efficiently than do adults.
Though this is a great breakthrough for people who loose their sight later in life do to some kind of phy
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As someone who is partially color blind, and has taken the "paint pots" test, I can tell you that it effectively only affects shades of brown. In other words, colors that we don't normally have names for.
The paint pots test is where they put 30 or so 1 inch round thingies on the table with a color sample on top, and you have to arrange them in order of slightly changing color. There are two points around the circle where brownish colors will be the same for those with partial (protanomaly or deuteranomaly)
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My dad has a red/green color deficiency. A red light and green light look identical to him; top means stop and bottom means go. He got a ticlet in Arizona once for running a red light that had been installed upside down. He complained loudly when they changed the color of stop signs from yellow to red, as a red stop sign is pretty much invisible to him if it's in front of bushes or other greenery.
He sees colors, but different colors than most people. His color deficiency makes me wonder -- if I had an eye t
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I've already been assimilated. Resistance is futile? You'll BEG to join us if you're in a wheelchair needing a new hip, or blind from cataracts needing a new lens, or if you need a pacemaker.
Most cyborgs are geezers.
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