1024 electrodes in the visual cortex

A method has been developed that is able to partially restore vision to blind people

Olga Ivanova, Naked Science

About 40 million people worldwide suffer from blindness. The idea of brain stimulation using an implant to create artificial visual perception originated in the 1970s. And today such systems are used, however, they are able to generate only a small number of pixels, are not very stable and short-lived.

Scientists from the Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience (NIN) used new implantation technologies in order to develop a more advanced model. The implants they created have a high resolution and consist of 1024 electrodes. The study is published in the journal Science (Chen et al., Shape perception via a high-channel-count neuroprosthesis in monkey visual cortex).

To test the effectiveness, the implants were implanted into the visual cortex of monkeys. At the initial stage, the animals performed a simple behavioral task – moving the pupils – then the tasks were complicated: the monkeys had to recognize letters, images, lines, moving objects.

Screenshot from the video posted in the news NIN Restoring a rudimentary form of vision in the blind – VM.

At the same time, the implant interacted directly with the brain, bypassing previous image processing using the eyes and optic nerves. Experts used a well–known visual phenomenon that occurs in humans without exposure to light on the eye - phosphene. People who are blind from birth are not capable of this, while those who are blind during their lifetime can see phosphenes with artificial excitation of the visual cortex of the brain. Artificial prostheses are created on the basis of this phenomenon.

Therefore, the implant developed by Dutch scientists can be used only for those people who have lost the ability to see as a result of an injury to the retina or optic nerve, but have an intact visual cortex. Of course, he is not able to fully restore his vision – with his help, you can restore only a rather weak visibility of objects and the ability to navigate in space.

But even this, according to scientists, is a great progress today. The number of electrodes implanted in the visual cortex and the number of artificial pixels used to create images is unprecedented. Researchers are confident that their development can significantly improve the quality of life of blind people.

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