Artificial eyesight

New device allows woman to see, even without eyes (recent local TV report)
Futuristic System Brings Vision To Blind (2002, ScienceDaily)



The visual quality seems rather low, but it's still a promising approach. A glasses-mounted camera transmits data to visual processing hardware, which is plugged into electrodes at the back or side of the skull stimulating the surface of the visual cortex. The user sees patterns of dots of light in the visual field - not exactly high-resolution stimulation, but vision is vision.

This is the same project that in 2002 enabled a formerly blind user to drive a car (slowly) around a parking lot.

Artificial vision is one of the most compelling objectives of neuroelectronics research. Not only will an adequate solution require a good physiological understanding of the visual cortex, but it will also require (or generate) a relatively sophisticated understanding of how the brain processes visual information.

On top of that, the method has some significant aesthetic advantages for the user. Just take a look at the picture.

Researcher: Kenneth Smith
Institution: St. Louis University of Medicine