Ophthalmologists and physicists at Stanford University have designed a bionic eye, of sorts, which may one day bring artificial vision to patients blinded by age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.

The system consists of a tiny video camera mounted on transparent virtual reality-style goggles, a wallet-sized computer processor, a solar-powered battery implanted in the iris, and a light-sensing chip implanted in the retina. The system, they say, would directly stimulate the layer underneath the dead photoreceptors, with resolution corresponding to 20/80 visual acuity.

The researchers are testing the system in rats, and say that human trials are at least three years away.

Palanker D, Vankov A, Huie P, Baccus S. Design of a high-resolution optoelectronic retinal prosthesis. J Neural Eng 2005;2:S105-S120

Vol. No: 142:5Issue: 5/15/05