Cortical Brain Implants Are Paving the Way for Visual Restorative Medicine

<p class="p1">This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.</p> <p class="p1">Today’s big idea highlights how innovations don’t happen in a vacuum, but rather a long chain of science and research and developments that build on each other. Dr. Shelley Fried’s work exemplifies this process. It took him a career’s worth of experiments and adjustments to enable his cortical brain implants to bypass the eye and restore the patient’s ability to perceive light. He had a lot of obstacles to overcome, everything from circumventing the brain’s natural inflammatory response to getting the research published. One thing is clear, breakthroughs take time and you cannot give up in the process. Your work often becomes an iteration of an iteration. Dr. Fried took inspiration from the artificial retina, which was prototyped from a cochlear implant. Dr. Fried’s revolutionary technology is another step towards a world in which no person is limited by their visual capacity.</p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p1"><strong>The Big Takeaways:</strong></p> <ul class="ul1"> <li class="li3"><span class="s1">A cochlear implant is a neuroprosthetic device surgically implanted in the cochlea, the inner part of the ear that is responsible for the transmission of nerve impulses in to the auditory cortex of the brain. Originally developed in 1950, the modern form was honed in the 1970s with help from NASA engineer.</span></li> <li class="li3"><span class="s1">Dr. Mark Humanyan took design cues from the cochlear when he was developing the Argus II retinal implant.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> What is a retinal prosthesis and how does it work? The simplest way to explain it is that it’s an array of electrodes that stimulates the retina and it helps restore vision loss. They work for some blindness cases but not all. For example, this treatment is not recommended for people with advanced glaucoma.</span></li> <li class="li3"><span class="s1">Dr. Fried took inspiration from retinal