AUSTRALIA: Australian scientists claim their version of a bionic eye is more practical than others.

Steve Horan regularly visits an eye clinic in eastern Sydney. With the help of his guide dog Casey, he navigates in the labyrinth like corridors of the hospital and meets with his doctors. "I was born with retinitis pigmentosa, it was fairly stable up until I was about eighteen or nineteen and since then it has been degenerating at a noticeable level, so I am not able to a lot of things I was able to do", Steve says as his guide dog rests next to his eye scan seat. Steve has lost almost all sight in his right eye, as his disease haunted him over the years. For Steve Horan and many others like him who have a serious vision impairment, there is new hope along the way with what Australian scientists say could be a breakthrough in eye technology. They believe they have found a practical technology, in the race of inventing a bionic eye, which could help blind and partially blind people see where objects are around them within five years. "What we are trying to do is enable them to see large objects and then hopefully give them enough vision to navigate, so we want to be able to turn their guide dogs back in to pets rather than being the patients' eyes", Professor Minas Coroneo said. Professor John Morley, working on the project, says electrodes implanted around the eyeball stimulate nerves and send signals to brain cells, as they receive vision as a processed data. "If you imagine a glove placed on the back of the eye, that has a series of electrodes embedded in it, that would suit on the back of the eye and that is relatively straight forward to implant and maintain on the back of the eye, to pick up a simple visual of a door-way or some other object in the environment, then we have a camera that would detect an image, that image would then be digitised and that digitised symbol would go to a computer processor that would in turn stimulate the electrodes that are on the back of the eye", Morley said. But it is all up to the brain to perceive the signals as light dots and fill in the blanks among them, he adds. Therefore those who are blind from birth, whose brain never processed light would unfortunately be unable to benefit from this new technology. The experience is much like seeing stars when a person stands up too quickly, says Professor John Morley. Although there have been other similar research initiatives around the world, Morley says that this Australian research is safer and more practical than the others, in terms of implantation and usage by the patient. U.S. and German scientists also designed a bionic eye, which comprises a computer chip that sits in the back of the individual's eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that they wear. Images captured by the camera are beamed to the chip, which translates them into impulses that the brain can interpret, according to BBC. "They are making devices that go inside the eye, which has a lot of difficulties associated with it as well as clinical issues associated with placing the device inside the eye and maintaining it for a long period of time, so our device is far simpler both technically and surgically to implant," says Morley. Morley also adds that they are working on to transfer a low resolution image which allow them to have better results. This particular research is currently being tried out and for Steve, who has been taking part in the trials, the results have been promising. He has already been able to see flashes of light with his right eye. "That certainly gives me hope, as the technology gets better and more refined I will be able to take advantage of it a bit more, it is very early days but it is still promising", Steve said. According to Morley, there has been significant interest in the technology and if successful, it could be available in the market within five years. Australian researchers have released details of human trials of a bionic eye last month. Researchers at the Bionic Eye foundation at Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital are planning trials of a permanent eye implant next year.

ITN Source | September 9, 2006

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