"This... revolutionary piece of technology ...has the potential to change people's lives."
Anita Lifestone, Royal National Institute for the Blind
Clinical trials were held in the United States in 2007 when seventy patients were fitted with a new device called the Argus II, which uses a camera connected to spectacles that feeds visual information to electrodes in the eye. In this trial, blind patients were able to see shape and movement. It seems that we could have a true "bionic eye" in the very near future.
Prosthetics to restore vision have been researched since the 1950s. Usually ocular prosthetics consist of a thin, curved sheet—generally made of a type of glass called cryolite or medical grade acrylic—that is fitted over the existing nonfunctioning eye. More recently, however, researchers have been trying to restore vision to those who have lost it—although it is extremely difficult to give sight to people who- were born without it.
Scientists have yet to recreate sight, but they are edging ever closer. What is really important is. The relationship between electronic signals and the biological constituents of the eye, and it is this area that is under investigation. If the optic nerve is damaged during adult life, it may be possible to reawaken it through the use of electrodes. That is, of course, a massive simplification; a complex series of up to sixty electrodes could be used in a "bionic eye," and we have yet to see just one that works fully.
