Man’s effort to find a solution to regain the lost sight started much earlier. Eye sight is lost due to diseases or accidents. If only a part of eye is damaged then eye sight can be restored by traditional eye treatment methods involving eye implant and all. But sometimes traditional methods fail and we may have to go for artificial eye implants and stuff like that. Several different artificial eye treatment methods have been adopted in the field of artificial eye treatment.
Some of the eye treatment methods are:
Method 1--Retinal simulation using twin video cameras:
In this method the person with eye damage wear a glass with two cameras. Light received by the camera is used to simulate the healthy neurons in the retina, thus producing the effect of inbound light.
Drawbacks:
(i) The retina is a very delicate and fragile membrane that can be damaged easily.
(ii) In retinal stimulation, each neuron that gets stimulated, produce only a single dot in any image that is seen b y the camera.
Method 2--Cortical stimulation- electrically stimulates cerebral cortex cells:
In this method the core concept is to electrically stimulate cells in the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain where visual signals from our eyes are processed.
Drawbacks:
(i) The complexity within the cortex makes it very difficult to generate intelligible pictures by this method.
(ii) If one site is simulated one spot of light is obtained. On simulating the second site a second spot of light is obtained. But if both sites are simulated at the same time we may not get a third spot of light.
Bionic eye- which solves the above problems:
The above mentioned drawbacks can be solved if the region of simulation is changed. But the simulating electrical signals are sill produced by cameras.
This is a more successful version of bionic eye among the other bionic eyes. In the case of other bionic eyes the region of simulation was the problem. But in this newer version of bionic eye that is solved thus making it a successful bionic eye among other bionic eyes.
LGN (Lateral Geniculate Nucleus)
In this model of bionic eye, the region of simulation is LGN(Lateral Geniculate Nucleus).LGN is a part of thalamus that relays sensory data including visual signals between the cortex and the rest of the body. The new model of bionic eye simulates this part of the thalamus.
Advantages:
(i) LGN is less fragile and delicate.
(ii) The thalamus is easier to stimulate compared to retina.
(iii) The targeted neurons behave more like those in the retina than those in the cortex.
(iv) Easier to generate intelligible images.
Regards
Team Coreelectronics
http://coreelectronics.info/
