Seeing with the Brain

By Marcia Faye

A groundbreaking artificial vision system that bypasses the optic nerve and instead, transmits image information to a special pair of eyeglasses via a camera and a wireless implant on the visual cortex of the brain, has advanced to the clinical trials stage this year. The National Institutes of Health awarded $2.5 million for the first year of the three-year project developed by a multi-institutional team led by Philip R. Troyk,executive director of the Pritzker Institute of Biomedical Science and Engineering.

The funding is provided as part of the NIH’s The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative NeurotechnologiesÒ Initiative. Troyk, who is also a professor of biomedical engineering at Armour College of Engineering and an affiliate professor at Stuart School of Business, began working on the project in 1983, when he attended his first meeting on neuroprosthesis research at the NIH.

How It Works

Artist’s concept of the ICVP system. The vision regions of the brain are stimulated by electrodes contained within wireless floating microelectrode arrays (WFMA) electronic modules.
Artist’s concept of the ICVP system. The vision regions of the brain are stimulated by electrodes contained within wireless floating microelectrode arrays (WFMA) electronic modules.
A group of WFMAs acts like an implanted cell-phone network for communicating vision information directly to the brain.
A group of WFMAs acts like an implanted cell-phone network for communicating vision information directly to the brain.
Each WFMA electronic module is 5 millimeters in diameter with 18 electrode tips smaller than the width of a human hair.
Each WFMA electronic module is 5 millimeters in diameter with 18 electrode tips smaller than the width of a human hair. The electrodes penetrate the brain and the WFMA communicates artificial visual information via a wireless magnetic link. The internal electronic chip processes the wireless commands to produce small electrical currents that stimulate the brain cells.
Stimulation patterns derived from the camera image are communicated to the implant via a transcutaneous link with no wires that cross the scalp to produce the perception of artificial vision.
Stimulation patterns derived from the camera image are communicated to the implant via a transcutaneous link with no wires that cross the scalp to produce the perception of artificial vision.
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Fall 2020
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