ENG 380T – Literature and Medicine Nicole Radova
The Bionic Eye: A Collaborative Vision “Seeing is believing” – an idiom commonly uttered and heard in today’s Western world. Sight has been deemed the superior sense in our society since its association with knowledge acquisition in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Classen 1997, 402), which the Scientific Revolution directly preceded. Yet available to us are four other senses, which itself is not an ultimate truth as the very concept of perception is influenced by culture and has been redefined in our own across time. Nevertheless, vision is considered the sense of logic, reason, and ultimately civilization. It is the sense through which we as humans differ most from other animals. …show more content…
An advantage of the former method is that it allows for visual signal encoding to improve via processing algorithms that recall prior choices of adjustable features (Luo and Cruz 2014, 40). The Argus II Visual Prosthesis System, which was approved in Europe in 2011 and received FDA approval in 2013, uses a glasses-mounted camera to capture image data that is processed by a portable computer and converted into electrical patterns (Lorach et al. 2014). These signals are wirelessly sent to an array composed of sixty microelectrodes placed in the macular region of the retina via an external coil located on the side arm of the glasses. A coil in the implant receives radiofrequency waves from the external coil and converts them back into electrical signals. After these signals – which essentially are data and power – are received, an internal circuit produces electrical pulses for microelectrode stimulation (Luo and Cruz 2014, …show more content…
One type of challenge is surgical, as the electrode array and electronic package delivering the current must be placed safely and securely. Other challenges concern microfabrication. Materials scientists produce electrodes that can deliver the necessary current to the tissue without physically damaging it. The electronics must also be enclosed in watertight packaging. Lastly, electrical engineers are involved in producing a circuit delivering a balanced current to the electrodes (Stapp 2010). Perhaps the biggest challenge for them is achieving a high resolution. The center of the macula, the fovea, has a 1:1 ratio of cones to ganglion cells, which is unlikely with prosthesis because a decreasing microelectrode diameter implies an exponentially increasing charge density that can damage tissue (Lou and Cruz 2014, 35). Future developments seek to improve resolution by making electrodes smaller and increasing their numbers. Other aims are increasing the field of vision as well as easing the production process by developing a device made out of organic polymers (Lorach et al.
The Bionic Eye: A Collaborative Vision “Seeing is believing” – an idiom commonly uttered and heard in today’s Western world. Sight has been deemed the superior sense in our society since its association with knowledge acquisition in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Classen 1997, 402), which the Scientific Revolution directly preceded. Yet available to us are four other senses, which itself is not an ultimate truth as the very concept of perception is influenced by culture and has been redefined in our own across time. Nevertheless, vision is considered the sense of logic, reason, and ultimately civilization. It is the sense through which we as humans differ most from other animals. …show more content…
An advantage of the former method is that it allows for visual signal encoding to improve via processing algorithms that recall prior choices of adjustable features (Luo and Cruz 2014, 40). The Argus II Visual Prosthesis System, which was approved in Europe in 2011 and received FDA approval in 2013, uses a glasses-mounted camera to capture image data that is processed by a portable computer and converted into electrical patterns (Lorach et al. 2014). These signals are wirelessly sent to an array composed of sixty microelectrodes placed in the macular region of the retina via an external coil located on the side arm of the glasses. A coil in the implant receives radiofrequency waves from the external coil and converts them back into electrical signals. After these signals – which essentially are data and power – are received, an internal circuit produces electrical pulses for microelectrode stimulation (Luo and Cruz 2014, …show more content…
One type of challenge is surgical, as the electrode array and electronic package delivering the current must be placed safely and securely. Other challenges concern microfabrication. Materials scientists produce electrodes that can deliver the necessary current to the tissue without physically damaging it. The electronics must also be enclosed in watertight packaging. Lastly, electrical engineers are involved in producing a circuit delivering a balanced current to the electrodes (Stapp 2010). Perhaps the biggest challenge for them is achieving a high resolution. The center of the macula, the fovea, has a 1:1 ratio of cones to ganglion cells, which is unlikely with prosthesis because a decreasing microelectrode diameter implies an exponentially increasing charge density that can damage tissue (Lou and Cruz 2014, 35). Future developments seek to improve resolution by making electrodes smaller and increasing their numbers. Other aims are increasing the field of vision as well as easing the production process by developing a device made out of organic polymers (Lorach et al.