Development of a Cortical Visual Neuroprosthesis for the Blind

Blindness

The objective of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of a cortical visual prosthesis based on intracortical microelectrodes to provide a limited but useful sense of vision to profoundly blind. This pilot study will provide important information on safety and efficacy for the development of an useful cortical visual neuroprosthesis for the blind.

Visual impairment is one of the ten most prevalent disabilities and poses extraordinary challenges to individuals in our society, which is heavily dependent on sight. Drug development and genetic engineering have had only marginal success as possible treatments but new hope has been generated by recent advances in neuroscience, micro-fabrication technologies, biomaterials, neuromorphic engineering and information and communication technologies leading to the development of highly sophisticated neural prosthetic devices which interact with the nervous system. Such assistive devices have already allowed thousands of deaf patients to hear sounds and acquire language abilities and the same hope exists in the field of visual rehabilitation. Several research groups worldwide are engaged in attempts to restore vision through retinal prosthesis. However these devices are not viable for all causes of blindness. Thus, if the communication link between eye and brain is destroyed (e.g. for Glaucoma or optic nerve atrophy), as is the case for 148 million people worldwide, then visual cortical prosthesis holds the dominant hope for visual restoration. Consequently, there are many compelling reasons to pursue the development of a cortical prosthesis capable of restoring some useful vision in profoundly blind patients and this approach may be the only treatment available for end-stage retinitis pigmentosa patients and for pathologies such as glaucoma optic atrophy, trauma to the retina and/or optic nerves, and for diseases of the central visual pathways due to brain injuries or stroke. The investigators will implant the CORTIVIS vision neuroprosthetic system, which utilizes a FDA cleared microelectrode array, into blind human volunteers and obtain descriptive feedback about visualized percepts. The experiments are designed to learn if volunteers can learn to integrate the electrical stimulation of brain visual areas into meaningful percepts. It is expected that a cortical device can create truly meaningful visual percepts that can be translated into functional gains such as the recognition, localization and grasping of objects or skillful navigation in familiar an unfamiliar environments resulting in a substantial improvement in the standard of living of blind and visually impaired persons. All the experiments will be carried out at the patient's hospital room (Hospital IMED Elche) during the post-surgical period or in a human psychophysical laboratory (University Miguel Hernández).

Spain