초소형 융합기술로 개발된 전자망막이 시각장애인들에게 새로운 삶을 제공하고 있습니다. 최근 다양한 신기술 개발을 위한 많은 연구가 진행 중에 있습니다. 전자망막은 그 중에 한가지 입니다. 과학과 공학을 전공하는 사람들의 땀과 노력이 많은 사람들에게 건전한 도움이 될 수 있기를 희망합니다. 관련 동영상을 보시고 싶으신 분은 아래의 그림을 클릭해 보시기 바랍니다.
KBS 박장범 기자
For the non-functional prosthesis or glass eye see Ocular prosthesis and Craniofacial prosthesis.
A visual prosthesis, often referred to as a bionic eye, is an experimental visual device intended to restore functional vision in those suffering from partial or total blindness. Many devices have been developed, usually modeled on the cochlear implant or bionic ear devices, a type of neural prosthesis in use since the mid 1980s.
The ability to give sight to a blind person via a bionic eye depends on the circumstances surrounding the loss of sight. For retinal prostheses, which are the most prevalent visual prosthetic under development (due to ease of access to the retina among other considerations), vision loss due to degeneration of photoreceptors (retinitis pigmentosa, choroideremia, geographic atrophy macular degeneration) is the best candidate for treatment. Candidates for visual prosthetic implants find the procedure most successful if the optic nerve was developed prior to the onset of blindness. Persons born with blindness may lack a fully developed optical nerve, which typically develops prior to birth.[citation needed]
Visual prosthetics are being developed as a potentially valuable aid for individuals with visual degradation. The visual prosthetic in humans remains investigational.
Drs. Mark Humayun,and Eugene DeJuan at the Doheny Eye Institute (USC), Dr. Robert Greenberg of Second Sight, and Bio-electronics Engineer Dr Wentai Liu at University of California, Santa Cruz were the original inventors of the active epi-retinal prosthesis [1] and demonstrated proof of principle in acute patient investigations at Johns Hopkins University in the early 1990s. In the late 1990s the company Second Sight was formed by Dr. Greenberg along with medical device entrepreneur, Alfred E. Mann, to develop a chronically implantable retinal prosthesis. Their first generation implant had 16 electrodes and was implanted in 6 subjects between 2002 and 2004. These subjects, who were all completely blind prior to implantation, could perform a surprising array of tasks using the device. In 2007, the company began a trial of its second generation, 60 electrode implant, dubbed the Argus II, in the US and in Europe.[2][3] In total 30 subjects particpated in the studies spanning 10 sites in 4 countries. In the spring of 2011, based on the seminal results of the clinical study which were recently published in Ophthalmology[4], Argus II was approved for commercial use in Europe, and Second Sight launched the product later that same year. An application for FDA approval in the US is pending. Three major US government funding agencies (National Eye Institute, Department of Energy, and National Science Foundation) have supported the work at Second Sight, USC, UCSC, CalTech, and other research labs .
Designed by Claude Veraart at the University of Louvain, this is a spiral cuff electrode around the optic nerve at the back of the eye. It is connected to a stimulator implanted in a small depression in the skull. The stimulator receives signals from an externally-worn camera, which are translated into electrical signals that stimulate the optic nerve directly.[5]
Although not truly an active prosthesis, an Implantable Miniature Telescope is one type of visual implant that has met with some success in the treatment of end-stage age-related macular degeneration.[6][7][8] This type of device is implanted in the eye's posterior chamber and works by increasing (by about three times) the size of the image projected onto the retina in order to overcome a centrally-located scotoma or blind spot.[7][8]
Created by VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies in conjunction with the CentraSight Treatment Program, the telescope is about the size of a pea and is implanted behind the iris of one eye. Images are projected onto healthy areas of the central retina, outside the degenerated macula, and is enlarged to reduce the effect the blind spot has on central vision. 2.2x or 2.7x magnification strengths make it possible to see or discern the central vision object of interest while the other eye is used for peripheral vision because the eye that has the implant will have limited peripheral vision as a side effect. The implant doesn’t affect your natural eye movement; you’ll need to wear glasses and may need to sometimes use a hand-held magnifying glass to read or see fine details.[9]
A Southern German team led by the University Eye Hospital in Tübingen, was formed in 1995 by Eberhart Zrenner to develop a subretinal prosthesis. The chip is located behind the retina and utilizes microphotodiode arrays (MPDA) which collect incident light and transform it into electrical current stimulating the retinal ganglion cells. As natural photoreceptors are far more efficient than photodiodes, visible light is not powerful enough to stimulate the MPDA. Therefore, an external power supply is used to enhance the stimulation current. The German team commenced in vivo experiments in 2000, when evoked cortical potentials were measured from Yucatán micropigs and rabbits. At 14 months post implantation, the implant and retina surrounding it were examined and there were no noticeable changes to anatomical integrity. The implants were successful in producing evoked cortical potentials in half of the animals tested. The thresholds identified in this study were similar to those required in epiretinal stimulation. The latest reports from this group concern the results of a clinical pilot study on 11 participants suffering from RP. Some blind patients were able to read letters, recognize unknown objects, localize a plate, a cup and cutlery. The results were to be presented in detail in 2011 in the Proceeedings of the Royal Society B doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.1747. In 2010 a new multicenter Study has been started using a fully implantable device with 1500 Electrodes Alpha IMS (produced by Retina Implant AG, Reutlingen, Germany), 10 patients included so far; first results have been presented at ARVO 2011.
Joseph Rizzo and John Wyatt at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and MIT began researching the feasibility of a retinal prosthesis in 1989, and performed a number of proof-of-concept epiretinal stimulation trials on blind volunteers between 1998 and 2000. They have since developed a subretinal stimulator, an array of electrodes, that is placed beneath the retina in the subretinal space and receives image signals beamed from a camera mounted on a pair of glasses. The stimulator chip decodes the picture information beamed from the camera and stimulates retinal ganglion cells accordingly. Their second generation prosthesis collects data and sends it to the implant through RF fields from transmitter coils that are mounted on the glasses. A secondary receiver coil is sutured around the iris.[10]
The brothers Alan Chow and Vincent Chow have developed a microchip containing 3500 photo diodes, which detect light and convert it into electrical impulses, which stimulate healthy retinal ganglion cells. The ASR requires no externally-worn devices.[5]
The original Optobionics Corp. stopped operations, but Dr. Chow acquired the Optobionics name, the ASR implants and will be reorganizing a new company under the same name. The ASR microchip is a 2mm in diameter silicon chip (same concept as computer chips) containing ~5,000 microscopic solar cells called "microphotodiodes" that each have their own stimulating electrode.[11]
Daniel Palanker and his group at Stanford University have developed an optoelectronic system for visual prosthesis [12] that includes a subretinal photodiode array and an infrared image projection system mounted on video goggles. Information from the video camera is processed in a pocket PC and displayed on pulsed near-infrared (IR, 850-900 nm) video goggles. IR image is projected onto the retina via natural eye optics, and activates photodiodes in the subretinal implant that convert light into pulsed bi-phasic electric current in each pixel. Charge injection can be further increased using a common bias voltage provided by a radiofrequency-driven implantable power supply [13] Proximity between electrodes and neural cells necessary for high resolution stimulation can be achieved utilizing the effect of retinal migration.
Similar in function to the Harvard/MIT device, except the stimulator chip sits in the primary visual cortex, rather than on the retina. Many subjects have been implanted with a high success rate and limited negative effects. Still in the developmental phase, upon the death of Dr. Dobelle, selling the eye for profit was ruled against in favor of donating it to a publicly funded research team.[5][14]
The Laboratory of Neural Prosthesis at Illinois Institute Of Technology (IIT), Chicago, is developing a visual prosthetic using Intracortical Iridium Oxide (AIROF) electrodes arrays. These arrays will be implanted on the occipital lobe. External hardware will capture images, process them and generate instructions which will then be transmitted to implanted circuitry via a telemetry link. The circuitry will decode the instructions and stimulate the electrodes, in turn stimulating the visual cortex. The group is developing a wearable external image capture and processing system. Studies on animals and psyphophysical studies on humans are being conducted to test the feasibility of a human volunteer implant.[citation needed]
Laser-based system for projecting an image directly onto the retina. This could be useful for enhancing normal vision or bypassing an occlusion such as a cataract, or a damaged cornea.[5]
Dr. Mohamad Sawan, Professor and Researcher at Polystim neurotechnologies Laboratory at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, has been working on a visual prosthesis to be implanted into the visual cortex. The basic principle of Dr. Sawan’s technology consists of stimulating the visual cortex by implanting a silicon microchip on a network of electrodes, made of biocompatible materials, wherein each electrode injects a stimulating electrical current in order to provoke a series of luminous points to appear (an array of pixels) in the field of vision of the blind person. This system is composed of two distinct parts: the implant and an external controller. The implant is lodged in the visual cortex and wirelessly receives data and energy from the external controller. It contains all the circuits necessary to generate the electrical stimuli and to monitor the changing microelectrode/biological tissue interface. The battery-operated outer controller consists of a micro-camera, which captures images, as well as a processor and a command generator, which process the imaging data to translate the captured images and generate and manage the electrical stimulation process. The external controller and the implant exchange data in both directions by a transcutaneous radio frequency (RF) link, which also powers the implant.[15]
Other note-worthy researchers include Richard Normann (University of Utah) and David Bradley at University of Chicago, Eduardo Fernandez and the European Consortium CORTIVIS (http://cortivis.umh.es), Ed Tehovnik at MIT, Tohru Yagi in Japan Visual Prosthesis Project, and the Bionic Vision Australia multi-institute partnership.
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쓸데없이 미적분 왜 배우냐고? 답해줄게!
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‘희망의 빛’ 전자 망막이 시각장애인들에게 새로운 삶을 제공
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삼성, 뇌에 칩 이식-인간제어 美 특허
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리차드 파인만: There’ s Plenty of Room at the Bottom
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조지 화이트사이드: 우표 한 장 크기의 실험실
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전자현미경으로 액체 속 원자 관찰 성공… 혈액 안 바이러스 분석 등 활용영역 넓어
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14080 | 2012-04-06 |
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만능초점 리트로 카메라 출시
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| KAIST 학부생 논문 세계적 저널 표지 장식 [1] (5) | 10720 | 2012-02-21 |
| 삼성 핵심인재 3천명 영입 | 12239 | 2012-01-27 |
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알렉산더 그라함 벨이 생각한 하늘을 떠나닐 수 있는 대형 구조물 제작
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15415 | 2012-01-12 |
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테크노마트 옥상에 웬 50t 철판?… 국내기술로 진동 잡는다.
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16791 | 2011-12-09 |
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| 걸으면서 충전하는 신발충전 기술의 발전 | 13799 | 2011-12-04 |
| 신규 홈페이지를 개설하며... | 10643 | 2011-12-03 |
| 모발 굵기 파이프에 흐르는 물로 PC 칩 식힌다. | 10770 | 2011-12-02 |
영국 BBC는 옥스퍼드 안과 병원의 로버트 맥클라렌(MaClaren) 교수팀이 시각 장애인 크리스 제임스(James)씨와 로빈 밀러(Millar)씨를 대상으로 인공 전자 망막을 이식, 이들이 흑백 상태의 사물을 알아보게 하는 데 성공했다고 3일(현지시각) 전했다.
연구진은 3㎟의 초소형 반도체 칩을 이용, 외부에서 들어온 빛을 전기신호로 바꾼 뒤 두 시각 장애인의 뇌에 있는 시신경으로 전달했다. 두 장애인의 뇌는 전달된 시신경 정보를 바탕으로 희미하게나마 빛을 시각화했다.
인공 망막 시술을 받은 제임스씨는 "인공 망막이 처음 가동될 때 생애 처음으로 번쩍하는 빛을 보았다"며 "환상적인 순간이었다"고 말했다. 제임스는 "근거리에서 빛의 존재와 직선과 곡선 형태를 구별할 수 있다"고 덧붙였다.
맥클라렌 교수는 "빛의 존재 여부를 감지하는 정도가 정상인들에게는 큰 의미가 없는 일"이라며 "하지만 홀로 방에 있는 시각장애인들에게 어디가 창이고 어디가 외부로 통하는 문인지를 알 수 있다는 사실은 큰 혜택이다"고 말했다.
이번에 성공한 인공 망막은 1500개의 화소(픽셀)로 이뤄졌다. 전문가들은 인공 망막이 1만개 수준으로 확대되면 시각 장애인들이 작은 물체도 인지할 수 있다고 밝혔다.