1.

INTRODUCTION

A visual prosthetic or bionic eye is a form of neural

prosthesis intended to partially restore lost vision or amplify existing vision. It
usually takes the form of an externally-worn camera that is attached to a
stimulator on the retina, optic nerve, or in the visual cortex, in order to produce
perceptions in the visual cortex.

Visual percepts are the final product of a rich interplay of

stimulus processing that occurs without the intervention of one's consciousness.
While this is a fascinating issue to consider, especially as it pertains to the
philosophical and practical definitions of ideas like the "self," the converse is
equally interesting to me. In this modern era of exploding technological
ingenuity, the sum of which is a product of the conscious brain, increasingly
more opportunities exist for the brain to design the input it receives. One
method by which this occurs is observable in the treatment of visual
pathologies. A development of particular interest to me is the use of visual
prosthetic devices in the treatment of some forms of progressive blindness.
Research in this area raises numerous conflicts within the realm of
bioengineering, but promises, at least, to challenge the boundaries of current
microtechnology and instigate further integration of the rapidly expanding fields
of electronics and medicine.

In 1988, a multidisciplinary research team called the

"Retinal Implant Project," spanning the knowledge bases of Harvard Medical
School, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science, was formed with the explicit goal of creating an intraocular retinal
prosthetic device to combat the effects of certain types of progressive blindness.
The prostheses are intended to stimulate retinal ganglion cells whose associated
photoreceptor cells have fallen victim to degradation by macular degeneration
or retinitis pigmentosa, two currently incurable but widespread conditions.
Their most recent work has been to orchestrate short-term clinical trials in
which blind volunteers receive a temporary intraocular prosthetic implant and
undergo a series of tests to determine the quality of visual percepts experienced
over a two- to three-hour period . The leaders of the Retinal Implant Project,
while enthusiastic about their progress, do not anticipate the realization of a
workable prosthetic within the next five years.

The goal of retinal prosthetic proposed by the collaborators

is to bypass degenerate photoreceptors by providing electrical stimulation
directly to the underlying ganglion cells. The ganglion cell axons compose the
optic nerve, which travels from the eye and terminates in various regions of the
brain, where the combined input is processed along multiple routes and
ultimately results in the experience of sight . Ganglion cell excitation will be
accomplished by attaching a two-silicon-microchip system onto the surface of
the retina, which will be powered by a specially designed laser mounted on a
pair of glasses worn by the patient . This laser will also be receiving visual data
input from a small, charge-coupled camera, whose output will dictate the
pattern intensity of the laser beam . The laser's emitted radiation will be
collected by the first microchip within the eye on an array of photodiodes and
transferred to the second chip, which will be responsible for electrically
stimulating a set of retinal ganglion cells via fine microelectrodes . Because the
ganglion cells in a healthy retina are stimulated by photoreceptors, this
activation process is designed to mimic the electrical activity within a retinal
ganglion cell corresponding to a visual stimulus, with the hope that some
measure of sight can be restored to individuals with faulty photoreceptors.

The team selected the retina as the site of artificial

stimulation after careful consideration of the effects of the target diseases and
the successes and limitations of electrical excitation at various regions along the
visual pathway. Dr. T. Hambrecht of the National Institutes of Health and Dr. R.
Normann of the University of Utah are two neurobiologists examining the
effects of microelectrode stimulation of various regions of the visual cortex, a
portion of the brain believed to be involved in visual perception. Upon
administration of electrical stimuli to subsurface regions of the visual cortex of
a blind patient, the patient identified spots of light, called phosphenes, which
varied in color and depth, depending on the location of the stimulus. While this
is exciting in its implications for elucidating the physical arrangement of the
neuronal cells involved in the visual pathway, it fails to replicate the experience
of sight because the stimuli are independent of external factors. Also, the visual
percept is the product of neuronal activity in more than one brain region, a fact
that renders the proposition that artificial stimulation in any single cortical area
(or small collection of cortical areas) could recreate the elaborate perception of
vision rather dubious.

The researchers involved with the Retinal Implant Project

hypothesize that higher quality visual perceptions will be experienced with
retinal than with intracortical stimulation. Joseph Wyatt and John Rizzo, III, the
co-heads of the Retinal Implant Project write, ". . . in principle, the earlier the
electronic input is fed into the nerves along the visual pathway, the better,
inasmuch as neural signals farther down the pathway are processed and
modified in ways not entirely well understood". This hypothesis is validated by
the observation that photoreceptors are the sole neurons decimated by macular
degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, leaving the remaining cells involved in
the visual process unharmed. Therefore, with the proper artificial input, it is
reasonable to expect that those with prosthetic photoreceptive apparatuses will
experience some returned vision.
 While this proposal is exciting in its scope and purpose, it is
not without drawbacks and complications. While the prosthetic's design offsets
many potential biological problems by having most of its functional parts
external to the body, this fails to solve every obstacle attendant upon the
insertion of an inorganic and electrically active device into a living eye. Rizzo
and Wyatt explain, "Biocompatibility, which encompasses biological, material,
mechanical, and electrochemical issues, is the most significant obstacle to the
development of a visual prosthesis".

Specifically, the electrical components of the prosthesis

must be sequestered from all intraocular fluids, which could corrode the thin
metal of the diodes and ruin the chips' ability to transmit electrical impulses
from the laser to the retinal ganglion cells. Likewise, the by-products of
electrical impulse transmission through metallic electrodes are toxic to living
cells, and must be diminished in order to insure minimal chemical devastation
of the retina. The electrodes themselves must also be anchored to the retina with
sufficient strength to accommodate physical agitation due to daily activity. This
promises to be a trying procedure. The retina is a slim 0.25 millimeters thick, a
dauntingly thin fabric onto which to stitch a complex, albeit tiny, piece of
machinery. As in all retinal surgical procedures, the implantation of a prosthetic
poses a risk of retinal detachment and infection of the associated membranes,
both of which would exacerbate, rather than prevent, vision loss. These
concerns have not been seriously addressed in this stage of the research,
because no long-term clinical trials of the prosthesis have been undertaken.

A final barrier to the project, and perhaps the most

complex to troubleshoot, is determining whether the engineered apparatus will
be effective in restoring sight with chronic implantation. Although short-term
tests of the photodiode array have been undertaken, their success was only
measured in the ability of the diodes to generate output once inserted into the
eye. While this was a necessary experimental step to prove the short-term
mechanical soundness of the diode apparatus to fluids of the inner eye, the
diodes have never been attached to the retinal tissue, and therefore, their
viability as conduits of visual information has not been examined. The data the
researchers cite in their preliminary investigations and those of their colleagues
report that the single visual percept accomplished by artificial stimulation to
date is phosphene recognition. This, however, is not equivalent to true sight, and
certainly falls short of the lofty goal claimed by its spearheads: to "improve
quality of life by providing gross perception with some geometric detail that
would increase independence by making it easier for a blind person to walk
down the street, for instance".
2.HISTORY

Scientific research since at least the 1950s has investigated

interfacing electronics at the level of the retina, optic nerve, thalamus, and
cortex. Visual prosthetics, which have been implanted in patients around the
world both acutely and chronically, have demonstrated proof of principle, but
do not yet offer the visual acuity of a normally sighted eye.
3.THE BIONIC EYE SYSTEM

In the past 20 years, biotechnology has become the fastest-

growing area of scientific research, with new devices going into clinical trials at
a breakneck pace. A bionic arm allows amputees to control movements of the
prosthesis with their thoughts. A training system called BrainPort is letting
people with visual and balance disorders bypass their damaged sensory organs
and instead send information to their brain through the tongue. Now, a company
called Second Sight has received FDA approval to begin U.S. trials of a retinal
implant system that gives blind people a limited degree of vision.

The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System can provide sight --

the detection of light -- to people who have gone blind from degenerative eye
diseases like macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. Ten percent of
people over the age of 55 suffer from various stages of macular degeneration.
Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited disease that affects about 1.5 million people
around the globe. Both diseases damage the eyes' photoreceptors, the cells at the
back of the retina that perceive light patterns and pass them on to the brain in
the form of nerve impulses, where the impulse patterns are then interpreted as
images. The Argus II system takes the place of these photoreceptors.

The second incarnation of Second Sight's retinal prosthesis consists of five main
parts:

 A digital camera that's built into a pair of glasses. It captures

images in real time and sends images to a microchip.
 A video-processing microchip that's built into a handheld unit. It
processes images into electrical pulses representing patterns of
 light and dark and sends the pulses to a radio transmitter in the
glasses.
 A radio transmitter that wirelessly transmits pulses to a receiver
implanted above the ear or under the eye
 A radio receiver that sends pulses to the retinal implant by a hair-
thin implanted wire
 A retinal implant with an array of 60 electrodes on a chip
measuring 1 mm by 1 mm
The entire system runs on a battery pack that's housed with the
video processing unit. When the camera captures an image -- of, say, a tree --
the image is in the form of light and dark pixels. It sends this image to the video
processor, which converts the tree-shaped pattern of pixels into a series of
electrical pulses that represent "light" and "dark." The processor sends these
pulses to a radio transmitter on the glasses, which then transmits the pulses in
radio form to a receiver implanted underneath the subject's skin. The receiver is
directly connected via a wire to the electrode array implanted at the back of the
eye, and it sends the pulses down the wire.

When the pulses reach the retinal implant, they excite the
electrode array. The array acts as the artificial equivalent of the retina's
photoreceptors. The electrodes are stimulated in accordance with the encoded
pattern of light and dark that represents the tree, as the retina's photoreceptors
would be if they were working (except that the pattern wouldn't be digitally
encoded). The electrical signals generated by the stimulated electrodes then
travel as neural signals to the visual center of the brain by way of the normal
pathways used by healthy eyes -- the optic nerves. In macular degeneration and
retinitis pigmentosa, the optical neural pathways aren't damaged. The brain, in
turn, interprets these signals as a tree and tells the subject, "You're seeing a
tree."
 It takes some training for subjects to actually see a tree. At
first, they see mostly light and dark spots. But after a while, they learn to
interpret what the brain is showing them, and they eventually perceive that
pattern of light and dark as a tree. The first version of the system had 16
electrodes on the implant and is still in clinical trials at the University of
California in Los Angeles. Doctors implanted the retinal chip in six subjects, all
of whom regained some degree of sight. They are now able to perceive shapes
(such as the shaded outline of a tree) and detect movement to varying degrees.
The newest version of the system should offer greater image resolution because
it has far more electrodes. If the upcoming clinical trials, in which doctors will
implant the second-generation device into 75 subjects, are successful, the retinal
prosthesis could be commercially available by 2010. The estimated cost is
$30,000.

Researchers are already planning a third version that has a

thousand electrodes on the retinal implant, which they believe could allow for
facial-recognition capabilities
4,ARTIFICIAL VISION

There are a number of blinding disorders which are primarily due

to photoreceptor or outer retinal degeneration/destruction. These include but are
not exclusive to diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age related related
macular degeneration. We have tested the feasibility of developing a retinal
implant/Chip which could provide form vision to this subset of blind patients.
This visual prosthesis would be situated in the eye cavity on the retinal surface.
It would create the sensation of seeing light by electrical stimulation of the
remaining retinal cells which remain relatively intact despite severe
photoreceptor loss. Moreover, by converting images into pixels and then
electrically stimulating the retina by a pattern of electrodes, this device would
recreate at least in part the visual information/scene.

Visual prosthetics can be broken into three major groups. First,

there are the devices that use either ultrasonic sound or a camera to sample the
environment ahead of an individual and render the results into either a series of
sounds or a tactile display. From this the person is supposed to be able to
discern the shape and proximity of objects in their path. The second major form
is retina enhancers. These machines supplement functions of the retina by
stimulating the retina with electrical signals which in turn causes the retina to
send the results through the optic nerve to the brain. The third major category of
visual prosthetic is a digital camera that samples an image and stimulates the
brain with electrical signals--either by penetrating into or placing electrodes on
the surface of the visual cortex.
4,a.BIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The ability to give sight to a blind person via a bionic eye

depends on the circumstances surrounding the loss of sight. For retinal
prostheses, which are the most prevalent visual prosthetic under development
(due to ease of access to the retina among other considerations), vision loss due
to degeneration of photoreceptors (retinitis pigmentosa, choroideremia,
geographic atrophy macular degeneration) is the best candidate for treatment.
Candidates for visual prosthetic implants find the procedure most successful if
the optic nerve was developed prior to the onset of blindness. Persons born with
blindness may lack a fully developed optical nerve, which typically develops
prior to birth.

4,b.TECHNOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Visual prosthetics are being developed as a potentially

valuable aide for individuals with visual degradation. The visual prosthetic in
humans remains investigational.
5,DEVICE

The device consists of a tiny camera and transmitter mounted in

eyeglasses, an implanted receiver, and an electrode-studded array that is secured
to the retina with a microtack the width of a human hair. A wireless
microprocessor and battery pack worn on the belt powers the entire device.

The camera on the glasses captures an image and sends the information to the
video processor, which converts the image to an electronic signal and sends it to
the transmitter on the sunglasses. The implanted receiver wirelessly receives
this data and sends the signals through a tiny cable to the electrode array,
stimulating it to emit electrical pulses. The pulses induce responses in the retina
that travel through the optic nerve to the brain, which perceives patterns of light
and dark spots corresponding to the electrodes stimulated. Patients learn to
interpret the visual patterns produced into meaningful images.

Second Sight’s first generation Argus 16 implant consists of a

16 electrode array and a relatively large implanted receiver implanted behind
the ear. The second generation Argus II is designed with a 60 electrode array
and a much smaller receiver that is implanted around the eye.

6.WORKING

Normal vision begins when light enters and moves through the
eye to strike specialized photoreceptor (light-receiving) cells in the retina called
rods and cones. These cells convert light signals to electric impulses that are
sent to the optic nerve and the brain. Retinal diseases like age-related macular
degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa destroy vision by annihilating these cells.

With the artificial retina device, a miniature camera mounted in

eyeglasses captures images and wirelessly sends the information to a
microprocessor (worn on a belt) that converts the data to an electronic signal
and transmits it to a receiver on the eye. The receiver sends the signals through
a tiny, thin cable to the microelectrode array, stimulating it to emit pulses. The
artificial retina device thus bypasses defunct photoreceptor cells and transmits
electrical signals directly to the retina’s remaining viable cells. The pulses travel
to the optic nerve and, ultimately, to the brain, which perceives patterns of light
and dark spots corresponding to the electrodes stimulated. Patients learn to
interpret these visual patterns.
1: Camera on glasses views image

2: Signals are sent to hand-held device

3: Processed information is sent back to glasses and wirelessly

transmitted to receiver under surface of eye

4: Receiver sends information to electrodes in retinal implant

5: Electrodes stimulate retina to send information to brain

7.TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW:

INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE VISUAL PATHWAY :

The global goal of our research program is to understand

how information about the outside world is encoded in the neuronal activity in
the central nervous system. The effects of a continuous exogenous input (the
visual world) are manifest through discrete electrical events in the early visual
pathway. The basic anatomy is shown in Figure 1, where light entering the eye
falls onto the photoreceptors of the retina and is transduced into electrical
signals that are processed through layers in the retina, and then passed through
the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) to the visual cortex. Individual neurons in
each of these areas respond to light within a restricted region of visual space,
known as the receptive field (RF). More generally, we refer to the
spatiotemporal RF as the characteristics of the integration of visual input over
space and time, giving rise to the neuronal response.

Figure 1. The early mammalian visual pathway.

It is important to quantify the manner in which information is

encoded in these stages of the early visual pathway, so that we may, in turn,
precisely control neural function to produce desired visual percepts, in
situations where function has been lost to trauma or disease. Note that current
attempts at visual prosthetics are still in the nascent stages, and there are major
signal processing, estimation, prediction, and control-related problems that must
be overcome before such technology becomes truly viable. Despite the fact that
the anatomy and physiology of the visual pathway have been studied for some
time, much is still not known about the true nature of the neural code that
enables us to interact with the external visual world.

ENCODING OF NATURAL SCENES:

Our early work led us to study encoding in the early visual
pathway through experimental and computational approaches. Neurons in the
visual pathway encode information about the outside visual world in a causal
manner, but the task of higher centers in the brain is to somehow interpret the
outside world from the spiking activity of neurons that project to them.

Taking this perspective, we decoded or reconstructed natural

visual inputs from population activity in the visual thalamus (which is an
intermediate stage of processing between the retina and cortex) (Stanley et al.,
1999), providing a description of the information about raw light intensity being
encoded in specific cell types within the early pathway. Figure 1 shows the
reconstructed light intensity of 4 adjacent pixels from 8 LGN neurons on the
left, and a reconstruction of a much larger region of visual space on the right
(from Stanley et al., 1999)

This work was critical in defining our direction of research for

the next several years. The large majority of experimental work on the
functional aspects of coding in the visual pathway has utilized artificial classes
of visual stimuli. To understand the true functionality of the visual pathway and
thus to make long term clinical impact, it is absolutely imperative that we
explore more behaviorally and practically relevant scenarios. Despite the
surprising amount of detail that was extracted from the ensemble neuronal
activity in the LGN, as shown in Figure 2, there are many unresolved issues.
Specifically, when studying neural encoding in the natural environment,
questions are raised concerning the role of adaptation in the transient natural
environment, the effects of spatial and temporal correlation structure on neural
coding, the relationship between functional encoding properties and the
information carrying properties of the pathway, and the role of the early visual
pathway in the detection of salient features in the environment. Figure 3 shows
examples of the differences between the evolution of the light intensity at a
point in visual space for natural vs. artificial (white noise) visual stimuli, along
with the corresponding second order statistics (power spectra) in both temporal

The overall perspective that we have taken in this work is that

the early visual pathway has (at least) two distinct roles in processing of
information about the outside world: transmission and detection, as shown in
Figure 4.

Figure 4.

The early visual pathway serves to detect changes in the outside visual world,
and to transmit fine details about relevant features.
 In certain contexts, it is important for the visual pathway to
transmit fine details concerning features of the outside visual world. We may
think of this as the what question: given that something of interest is in my
visual field, what is it? Is it predator or prey, or perhaps a potential mate? In
other ethologically relevant contexts, it is important to detect the presence of an
object or to signal novelty, in a "bottom-up" context, potentially for the "top-
down" allocation of attentional resources. We may think of this as a yes or no
question: is something of interest there or not? The fast and robust detection of
changes in the external environment may be critical for the survival of the
organism. The startling aspect of this dichotomy is that the seemingly disparate
tasks may in fact be accomplished by the same neuronal circuitry.

ADAPTATION:

A common thread through much of our current work is in

understanding how encoding properties of the neuronal pathways change over
time. One of the most striking properties of the visual system is that it can
faithfully encode visual stimuli over an enormous operating range of light
intensity. This important property exists as a result of adaptive mechanisms that
effectively shift the neuronal sensitivity in response to changes in the light level.
The adaptive mechanisms are continually active in all but the most artificial of
laboratory conditions, as we move our eyes across the visual field, and objects
move in and out of our view. These aspects of encoding are ignored in many
studies, and are the subject of much controversy as to what the functional
significance might be. This is an extremely critical issue in prosthetics, and in
other types of biomimetic applications which seek to process visual information
with the efficiency of the true biological systems.
 Adaptation mechanisms affect the encoding of information in
the pathway, which is reflected in the properties of the spatio-temporal receptive
field and corresponding spatial and temporal frequency properties. We have
developed novel approaches to track changes in the linear and nonlinear
encoding dynamics in the visual pathway through adaptive estimation schemes
(Stanley, 2002; Lesica et al., 2003; Lesica and Stanley, 2005a; Lesica and
Stanley 2005b), testing in the retina, LGN, and visual cortex. A block diagram
of the encoding framework is shown in Figure 5, along with the evolution of a
spatial receptive field (RF) of an LGN X cell over several seconds of exposure
to a visual stimulus that induces adaptation.

Specifically, this particular example is of a retinal ganglion cell

response in a contrast switching experiment (data provided by Baccus and
Meister). The left column demonstrates that the gain and offset (theta) of the
imposed model (top of figure) can be estimated over a single trial of
experimental data, as the contrast switching in panel A invokes dramatic
adaptation. The second column illustrates that the proper
estimation/representation of linear and nonlinear components of the encoding
process is necessary to accurately capture the true dynamics of the adaptation
process.

We have established a recent collaboration with the laboratory

of Dr. Jose-Manuel Alonso in the Department of Optometry at SUNY, in
Manhattan. In this collaboration, we have been able to design experiments and
collect data from the early visual pathway that specifically address issues
related to encoding during adaptation, both with artificial stimuli designed to
specifically probe contrast adaptation, and with natural scene stimuli.
DETECTION:

The lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the thalamus is the

gateway to the visual cortex, controlling the flow of visual information from the
retina [for a review of LGN function, see Sherman (2001a)]. Understanding the
neural code of the LGN is an essential first step in characterizing the processing
of visual information in higher-level neurons.

After prolonged periods of hyperpolarization, voltage-

dependent calcium channels in the membrane of the neuron are de-inactivated,
and subsequent depolarization causes a stereotyped burst of closely spaced
action potentials. It has been suggested that bursts serve to signal the
appearance of a salient stimulus (detection), whereas tonic firing relays detailed
features of the stimulus (transmission) (Crick, 1984; Guido et al., 1995). Bursts
may serve as a wake-up call, alerting the visual cortex to the presence of a
stimulus in the receptive field (RF) and signaling the beginning of tonic relay
(Sherman, 2001b).

We investigated the role of LGN bursts in encoding

correlated natural stimuli by analyzing the responses of LGN neurons to natural
scene movies. Across a sample of LGN X-cells, a significant increase in
bursting was observed during natural scene stimulation (relative to white noise
stimulation).

The stimulus features preceding burst events and tonic spikes

were characterized, revealing that the type of visual stimulus evoking a burst
was fundamentally different from that evoking tonic activity, and was in fact a
feature characteristic of the correlation structure of natural scenes.
The LGN resting membrane potential can vary widely according to behavioral
state, from its lowest level during sleep to its highest level during active waking
(Hirsch et al., 1983). We hypothesized that the resting potential would affect the
particular features of the visual stimulus that evoke bursts, and therefore be a
function of behavioral state. In a recent study with our collaborators (the
laboratory of Dr. Jose-Manuel Alonso at SUNY), we characterized the visual
features that evoke bursts at different resting potentials using simulated and
experimental LGN responses to natural scene movies, and our results support
this claim. To investigate the functional consequences of the effects of resting
potential on burst generation, we tested the effects of changes in resting
potential on the extent to which bursts enhance the detection of different visual
features (Guido et al., 1995; Sherman, 2001a; Smith and Sherman, 2002).
Although comparing the LGN response with and without bursts in vivo is not
possible (Porcello et al., 2003), these experiments can be simulated using an
integrate-and-fire-or burst (IFB) model, which can accurately reproduce the
LGN response during both tonic and burst firing (Smith et al., 2000; Lesica and
Stanley, 2004). We simulated the LGN response to different visual features at
different resting potentials with and without the burst mechanism, and
compared the results using signal detection theory. Our results show that bursts
enhance detection of the onset of excitatory features at low resting potentials
and the offset of inhibitory features at high resting potentials, suggesting that
bursts may play a dynamic role in visual processing that changes with
behavioral state.

Most recently, we have also developed algorithms that are

inspired by the transmit/detect framework of the early visual pathway,
specifically for the robust relay of visual information in situations with
constraints on bandwidth.
INFORMATION TRANSMISSION :

For decades, the visual receptive field (RF) has served as the
fundamental building block for our current understanding of the visual pathway
(Kuffler, 1953; Hubel and Weisel, 1962). Spatiotemporal integration of visual
stimuli, when combined with functional mechanisms representative of non-
linear spike generation, has been shown to be a good predictor of firing rate for
many neurons in the early visual pathway (Dan et al., 1996; Stanley, 2002).
However, the temporal resolution of the stimulus representation is limited by
the photoreceptor transduction process and takes place over a time course of
tens to hundreds of milliseconds (Barlow, 1952), limiting a receptive-field-
based description of the firing rate to this relatively coarse temporal scale.

In contrast, information theoretic studies of these same

neurons reveal significant temporal structure in the neural responses on the
order of one millisecond (Reinagel and Reid, 2000; Liu et al., 2001). The
discrepancy of temporal scales between stimulus representation and neural
response has been the seed of a far ranging debate concerning temporal
precision and variability of neural responses, and their corresponding role in
neural coding of dynamic stimuli (e.g., de Ruyter van Steveninck et al. (1997);
Warzecha and Egelhaaf (1999)). Figure 8 shows the ability of a simple linear-
nonlinear (LN) model to capture the firing activity of an LGN neuron at a
coarse temporal resolution (bottom), while failing at finer time resolutions
(middle).
 Figure 8.

Raster of the spike times of a simulated LGN neuron to full-field Gaussian

white noise, with the resulting instantaneous spike rate (below, solid line) and
LN prediction (dashed line), at a binsize of 0.3 ms. Dashed horizontal line
shows the mean firing rate. Bottom, actual (solid) and LN model prediction
(dashed) of firing rate at binsize of 8.3 ms.

In recent work, we have established a direct link between

receptive field descriptions of neurons and their information encoding
properties by incorporating elements that capture finer time resolutions into the
relatively coarse representation of the receptive field. Such a framework results
in “sparse” representations with large fluctuations in firing rates that match
experimental observations, and thus provides an understanding of how elements
of neural encoding directly relate to information transmission.

Furthermore, these sparse representations translate into

structure in the neuronal response on time scales of the order of a millisecond..
As a result, two neurons with subtle differences in their receptive fields could
produce distinct responses that would be indistinguishable at coarse times
scales, allowing information about small differences in visual stimuli to be
easily read out by downstream neurons.
8.EXISTING PROJECTS

ARGUS RETINAL PROSTHESIS:

Drs. Mark Humayun and Eugene DeJuan at the Doheny Eye

Institute (USC) were the original inventors of the active epi-retinal prosthesis
and demonstrated proof of principle in acute patient investigations at Johns
Hopkins University in the early 90s. In the late 90s the company Second Sight
was formed to develop a chronically implantable retinal prosthesis. Their first
generation implant had 16 electrodes and was implanted in 6 subjects between
2002 and 2004. Five of these subjects still use the device in their homes today.
These subjects, who were all completely blind prior to implantation, can now
perform a surprising array of tasks using the device. More recently, the
company announced that it has received FDA approval to begin a trial of its
second generation, 60 electrode implant, in the US. Additionally they have
planned clinical trials worldwide, all getting underway in 2007. Three major US
government funding agencies (National Eye Institute, Department of Energy,
and National Science Foundation) have supported the work at Second Sight and
USC.

MICROSYSTEM-BASED VISUAL PROSTHESIS (MIVIP):

Designed by Claude Veraart at the University of Louvain, this is

a spiral cuff electrode around the optic nerve at the back of the eye. It is
connected to a stimulator implanted in a small depression in the skull. The
stimulator receives signals from an externally-worn camera, which are
translated into electrical signals that stimulate the optic nerve directly.
IMPLANTABLE MINIATURE TELESCOPE:

Although not truly an active prosthesis, an Implantable Miniature

Telescope is one type of visual implant that has met with some success in the
treatment of end-stage age-related macular degeneration. This type of device is
implanted in the eye's posterior chamber and works by increasing (by about
three times) the size of the image projected onto the retina in order to overcome
a centrally-located scotoma or blind spot.

TÜBINGEN MPDA PROJECT:

A Southern German team led by the University Eye Hospital in

Tübingen, was formed in 1995 by Eberhart Zrenner to develop a subretinal
prosthesis. The chip is located behind the retina and utilizes microphotodiode
arrays (MPDA) which collect incident light and transform it into electrical
current stimulating the retinal ganglion cells. As natural photoreceptors are far
more efficient than photodiodes, visible light is not powerful enough to
stimulate the MPDA. Therefore, an external power supply is used to enhance
the stimulation current. The German team commenced in vivo experiments in
2000, when evoked cortical potentials were measured from Yucatan micropigs
and rabbits. At 14 months post implantation, the implant and retina surrounding
it were examined and there were no noticeable changes to anatomical integrity.
The implants were successful in producing evoked cortical potentials in half of
the animals tested. The thresholds identified in this study were similar to those
required in epiretinal stimulation. The latest reports from this group concern the
results of a clinical pilot study on eight participants suffering from RP. The
results will be presented in detail on the ARVO 2007 congress in Fort
Lauderdale.
HARVARD/MIT RETINAL IMPLANT:

Joseph Rizzo and John Wyatt at MIT and the Massachusetts Eye
and Ear Infirmary have developed a stimulator chip that sits on the retina and is
in turn stimulated by signals beamed from a camera mounted on a pair of
glasses. The stimulator chip decodes the picture information beamed from the
camera and stimulates retinal ganglion cells accordingly.

ARTIFICIAL SILICON RETINA (ASR):

The brothers Alan Chow and Vincent Chow have developed a

microchip containing 3500 solar cells, which detect light and convert it into
electrical impulses, which stimulate healthy retinal ganglion cells. The ASR
requires no externally-worn devices.

OPTOELECTRONIC RETINAL PROSTHESIS:

Daniel Palanker and his group at Stanford University have

developed an optoelectronic system for visual prosthesis that includes a
subretinal photodiode array and an infrared image projection system mounted
on video goggles. Information from the video camera is processed in a pocket
PC and displayed on pulsed near-infrared (IR, 850-900 nm) video goggles. IR
image is projected onto the retina via natural eye optics, and activates
photodiodes in the subretinal implant that convert light into pulsed bi-phasic
electric current in each pixel. Current can be further increased by approximately
an order of magnitude using a common bias voltage provided by a
radiofrequency-driven implantable power supply Close proximity between
electrodes and neural cells necessary for high resolution stimulation can be
achieved utilizing effect of retinal migration.
THE DOBELLE EYE:

Similar in function to the Harvard/MIT device, except the

stimulator chip sits in the primary visual cortex, rather than on the retina. Many
subjects have been implanted with a high success rate and limited negative
effects. Still in the developmental phase, upon the death of Dr. Dobelle, selling
the eye for profit was ruled against in favor of donating it to a publicly funded
research team.

INTRACORTICAL VISUAL PROSTHESIS:

The Laboratory of Neural Prosthesis at Illinois Institute Of

Technology (IIT), Chicago, is developing a visual prosthetic using Intracortical
Iridium Oxide (AIROF) electrodes arrays. These arrays will be implanted on the
occipital lobe. External hardware will capture images, process them and
generate instructions which will then be transmitted to implanted circuitry via a
telemetry link. The circuitry will decode the instructions and stimulate the
electrodes, in turn stimulating the visual cortex. The group is developing a
wearable external image capture and processing system. Studies on animals and
psyphophysical studies on humans are being conducted to test the feasibility of
a human volunteer implant.

THE VIRTUAL RETINAL DISPLAY (VRD):

Laser - based system for projecting an image directly onto the

retina. This could be useful for enhancing normal vision or bypassing an
occlusion such as a cataract, or a damaged cornea.
9.Advantages of the bionic

eye With research going on further based on the proposed

models, the bionic eyes have the following advantages:

a. The bionic eye can be implanted easily and the patient need not carry
external batteries and external wiring.

b. Helps treat patients with total loss of vision.

c. Bionic eye implants and services are quite easily available and accessible.

d. It has amazing optical properties as the ceramic detectors used are

biocompatible, compact and efficient.

e. It has a structure that is naturally porous which allows nutrients to flow from
the back to the front of the eye easily.

f. Since it is FDA approved quality and durability are not in question anymore.

10. LIMITATION

a. It is an expensive treatment and not everyone can afford it.

b. Since research is still going on results are yet not 100% successful.

c. The facility is yet not that accessible in many countries.

d. Creating a replacement that is artificial many be risk laden.

11.FUTURE SCOPE

The Future SCOPE of this technology are to improve the quality and sharpness
of the final image. Scientists are also converging their efforts to bypass the
retina so that signals can be directly sent to the brain. This would help those
who have a defective or damaged retina.
12.CONCLUSION

This is a revolutionary piece of technology and really has the

potential to change people's lives. Artificial Eye is such a revolution in medical

science field. It’s good news for patients who suffer from retinal diseases. A

bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people

could be available to patients within two years. Retinal implants are able to

partially restore the vision of people with particular forms of blindness caused

by diseases such as macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa. About 1.5

million people worldwide have retinitis pigmentosa, and one in 10 people over

the age of 55 have age-related macular degeneration. The invention and

implementation of artificial eye could help those people.

13.REFERENCES

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3. Pardeep K, Kokilam KV, Sunitha C. An Overview Artificial Eye: Bionic

Eye. Proceedings of National Conference on New Horizons in IT – NCNHIT.
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4. Narayanan P, Senthil G. Bionic Eye Powered by Nanogenerator. International

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