Bionic eye trials ready in 2013

MONASH UNIVERSITY

Over 50,000 people in Australia are considered clinically blind while the number globally exceeds 160 million. Image: [name here]/iStockphoto Monash University researchers say they will have a bionic eye implant ready for human trials in 2013. “We have made significant progress since beginning last year and are confident we will have a device that could treat the majority of patients who are clinically blind,” said Professor Arthur Lowery, Director of the Monash Vision Group (MVG). Over 50,000 people in Australia are considered clinically blind while the number globally exceeds 160 million. “Our device will directly stimulate the brain’s vision centre using a miniaturised implant. The implant is fed with signals from a camera that have been processed to extract the most useful information, depending on what the user needs. “The implant has many tiles, each with 45 electrodes, designed to give over 650 pixels in all. Due to the powerful and adaptable signal processing, we believe this number of electrodes can provide invaluable situational awareness to the user. The device can also be tuned for use in different environments, both indoors and outdoors,” Prof Lowery said. The MVG approach has a number of advantages over other bionic eye technologies, in that it does not require a functioning eyeball or optic nerve or visual pathways from the eye to the brain. Prof Jeffrey Rosenfeld, chief surgeon on the project from The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, believes that this approach will suit patients who have lost their sight through traumatic injury or tumours, and will also be suitable for many patients with diseases affecting the eye itself, such as glaucoma and retinal disorders. “Our implant features an array of electrodes inserted into the surface layers of the brain at the back of the head where the V1 vision region resides. The V1 region has a relatively large surface area compared with the retina, so can potentially provide better resolution than other approaches,” Prof Rosenfeld said. Established in April 2010, with an $8 million grant from the Australian Research Council, MVG consists of more than 20 leaders in physiology, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, electrical and electronic engineering, mechanical and materials engineering, mathematics and immunology.  The MVG’s key partners include Monash University, Grey Innovation, Alfred Health and MiniFab, with the group also exploring the potential to collaborate with other leading researchers and engineers from Australia, the US and UK. Editor's Note: More information about the research can be found here.