Artificial vision

Abstract

A number treatment options are emerging for patients with retinal degenerative disease, including gene therapy, trophic factor therapy, visual cycle inhibitors (e.g., for patients with Stargardt disease and allied conditions), and cell transplantation. A radically different approach, which will augment but not replace these options, is termed neural prosthetics ("artificial vision"). Although rewiring of inner retinal circuits and inner retinal neuronal degeneration occur in association with photoreceptor degeneration in retinitis pigmentosa (RP), it is possible to create visually useful percepts by stimulating retinal ganglion cells electrically. This fact has lead to the development of techniques to induce photosensitivity in cells that are not light sensitive normally as well as to the development of the bionic retina. Advances in artificial vision continue at a robust pace. These advances are based on the use of molecular engineering and nanotechnology to render cells light-sensitive, to target ion channels to the appropriate cell type (e.g., bipolar cell) and/or cell region (e.g., dendritic tree vs. soma), and on sophisticated image processing algorithms that take advantage of our knowledge of signal processing in the retina. Combined with advances in gene therapy, pathway-based therapy, and cell-based therapy, "artificial vision" technologies create a powerful armamentarium with which ophthalmologists will be able to treat blindness in patients who have a variety of degenerative retinal diseases.