By Alexandra Demetriou
Dr. Mark Humayun from the USC Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics was recently featured in Nature Outlook for his outstanding contributions to advance the treatment of blindness. The article highlighted a handful of the world’s top researchers tackling the problem of retinal degeneration, which is the leading cause of blindness in developed countries.
Dr. Humayun’s Argus series implants were showcased amongst the most cutting-edge approaches to restoring eyesight for patients with some functional retinal cells still intact. The Argus II “bionic eye” consists of an electrode array that is implanted on the surface of the retina. The patient wears glasses equipped with a small video camera that transmits signals wirelessly to the implant. The electrodes stimulate the retina, which then communicates those signals to the brain. Over 300 patients have received the Argus II prosthesis and have regained their perception of light patterns, movement and basic shapes.
For patients who have completely lost functionality of the retina, Humayun and his colleagues at Second Sight have a different approach: sending signals from a camera directly to the brain.
The researchers have developed a chip, called Orion, which is surgically implanted on the outer surface of the very back of one’s brain. This region of the brain, called the visual cortex, is responsible for processing and interpreting information from the eyes. Like Argus II, Orion receives signals from a camera mounted on the patient’s glasses, and the brain can then convert those signals into visual information. So far, the chip has been successfully implanted in five patients with limited or no light perception. The trial is still its early stages, but the preliminary results look promising and Humayun hopes the chip will receive FDA approval in a few years.
To read the entire Nature Outlook article, click here.