Towards a Cortical Visual Neuroprosthesis for the Blind

FERNÁNDEZ E; AHNELT P; RABISCHONG P, BOTELLA C; GARCIA-DE QUIROS F; BONOMINI MP; MARIN C; CLIMENT R; TORMOS JM; NORMANN RA

Viena, Austria

Conferencia; European Medical and Biological Engineering Conference; 2002

Our main objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of a cortical neuroprosthesis, interfaced with the visual cortex, as a means through which a limited but useful visual sense may be restored to profoundly blind people. Although there are still a number of important unanswered questions and many problems have to be solved before a Cortical Visual Neuroprosthesis can be considered a viable clinical therapy, our results show that stimulation of occipital cortex is able to elicit visual perceptions at least in ca. 50 % of blind subjects, and suggest that multiple intracortical microelectrodes could be used for a long-term stable and safe clinical neuroprosthesis.