Department of Bio Medical Engineering

THE BIONIC EYE

DECRIRE- POSTER

P.L. HAARIKA,

A. GAURIKA,

DEPARTMENT OF BIO MEDICAL ENGINEERING,

GVP COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING FOR WOMEN,

E-MAIL ADDRESS :

CONTACT NUMBER: 0891- 2796886

INTRODUCTION:

Researchers working for the Boston Retinal Implant Project have been developing a Bionic eye implant that could restore the eye sight of people who suffer from age related blindness .The implant is based on a small chip that is surgically implanted behind the retina, at the back of the eye ball. An ultra-thin wire strengthens the damaged optic nerve; its purpose is to transmit light and images to the brain’s vision system,where it is normally processed. Other than the implanted chip and wire, most of the device sits outside the eye. The users would need to wear special eye glasses battery-powered camera and a transmitter, which would send images to the chip implanted behind the retina. The new device is expected to be quite durable, since the chip is enclosed in a Titanium casing, making it both water-proof and corrosion-proof. The researches estimate that the device will last for at least10years inside the eye.

The purpose of this report is to provide an accurate and detailed description of this bionic eye (optoelectronic retinal prosthesis) and its function.

The new technology tested by Mrs.Moorfoot uses an external camera worn on a pair of dark glasses that sends images to a radio receiver implanted near the eye that transmits thesignal on to a tiny silicon and platinum chip that sits on the retina. This information then goes down the optic nerve into the brain. The team lead by Dr .Mark Humayun professorof ophthalmology and Biomedical engineering at the Doheny eye institute in Los Angeles, Californiahave now developed a small and powerful camera that could be implanted inside the patient’s eye, rather than worn on a pair of glasses. The camera is very, very small and very low power, so it can go inside your eye and couple your eye movement to where the camera is.

Optoeloctronic Retinal Prosthesis:

Blindness is one of the most devastating consequences of disease. We develop electronic retinal prosthesis for restoration of sight to patients suffering from degenerative retinal diseases such as Retinitis Pigmentosa and Age-Related Macular Degeneration. In these conditions the photoreceptor cells slowly degenerate, leading to blindness. However, many of the inner retinal neurons that transmit signals from the photoreceptors to the brain are preserved to a large extent for a prolonged period of time. -> Electrical stimulation of the remaining retinal neurons can produce phosphenes - perception of light, and the first retinal implants involving a small number of electrodes (16 to 60) yielded encouraging results in patients with retinal degeneration. However, thousands of pixels are likely to be required for functional restoration of sight, such as reading and face recognition.

Development of a high resolution retinal prosthesis faces multiple engineering and biological challenges, such as delivery of information to thousands of pixels at video rate, placement of the electrodes in close proximity to the target cells, avoidance of fibrotic encapsulation of the implant, signal processing that compensates for the partial loss of the retinal neural network, and many others.

This is how a bionic eye looks and its related information.

Thank you,

P.L. HAARIKA,

A. GAURIKA.