From Associated Press (hope they don't mind :)
LA Times Friday, October 30, 1992
Tiny electrodes implanted in a blind woman's brain allowed her to "see"
distinct dots of light- a method that may produce an artificial vision device
in several years, doctors said Thursday.
The experiment "gives us firm evidence that artificial vision for the blinded
person is an achievable goal, hopefully before the end of the decade," said Dr.
Murray Goldstein, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders
and Stroke.
"Our initial goal is to develop a stadium scoreboard type of display so they
could read printed material and recognize street signs," navigate through
doorways and avoid obstacles, said Dr. Terry Hambrecht, an institute physician.
The government experiment, part of a 20-year, $10-million research effort,
was revealed during the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. It was
kept secret because "we didn't want to spread false hope if the experiment
failed," Goldstein said.
The experiment on the 42-year-old blind woman started when she underwent
surgery in November, 1991, at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center
in Bethesda, Md. The woman, a volunteer whose identity was not disclosed, lost
her eyesight due to glaucoma 20 years ago, Hambrecht said.
During her operation, Drs. Conrad Kufta and Daniel O'Rourke removed a
1-by-2-inch section of her skull and implanted 38 "micro-electrodes" into her
visual cortex, the part of the brain that receives signals from the eyes.
Tiny gold wires attached to each electrode protruded from her skull. When
electric currents were applied to the wires, 34 of the 38 electrodes worked,
allowing her to "see" 34 dots of blue, purple, red and yellow light that ranged
from the size of a pinhead to the size of a nickel held at arms length and that
could be adjusted in brightness.
Hambrecht and other researchers mapped where each electrode produced a dot in
the woman's perceived field of vision. That let them apply current to four
electrodes so the woman could "see" the letter I, he said.
Eventually, scientists envision a device that would include a miniature
television camera attached to eyeglasses frames: The TV picture of a blind
person's surroundings would be sent to electrodes permanently implanted in the
brain and the user would experience the sensation of seeing a picture made up
of 250 to 1000 spots of light.
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While I found this fascinating, the AP leaves a bit to be desired in terms of
references. I searched Medline but found no reference to this experiment,
although I did find some of Kufta and O'Rourke's previous papers. If anyone
hears anything else about this could you let me know?
Another item they neglected to mention was how long the electrodes stayed
implanted and continued working. I was always under the impression that this
was one of the most difficult parts about directly stimulating nerve cells:
they tend to die off.
What does this have to do with Traveller? Well...It's late and I thought
some of our more cyber-ish players out there might find it interesting, and
it's late...
Andrew
Etienne de Mer, Ex-Captain Imperial Navy. Pilot, carries a fancy blade, slips
into a (bad) Neo-French accent in times of stress. [email removed]