A group of scientists from the Medical College Baylor in Houston have developed a brain implant that allows the blind to “see” the shape of letters.
The device transmits visual information from the camera directly into electrodes implanted in the brain. It is a step to “visual prosthesis” that would allow the blind to fully compensate for the function of vision.
Study participants were able to “see” the outlines of the figures through a complex sequence of electrical pulses sent into their brain. “When we used electrical stimulation to dynamically trace the letters directly on the brains of patients, they were able to “see” the shape of the letters and correctly identify them,” commented senior author Daniel Yoshor. “They described seeing glowing spots or lines forming a letter”.
The new device differs from the previous by the fact that earlier models treated each electrode as a pixel. The scientists instead try to build figures from a few spots of light, worked with the contours.
Such a device could have a serious impact on the lives of blind and visually impaired people. However, its development is still in its early stages, because the brain is an extremely complex organ.
“the Primary visual cortex, which was implanted electrodes, contains half of the neurons”, the study says. “This time we stimulated only a small portion of these neurons using multiple electrodes. So the next step would be to work with neuroengineers to create arrays with thousands of electrodes.”
