Cortical Implants

Cortical Implants

Cortical implants are a great form of visual prosthesis. The way they work is that they collect images through an external camera, which then relays these images to the brain where they are processed. However, cortical implants are different from other types of visual aids in that they do not require any sort of implant in one’s brain; such is the case with the sub retinal implants. Sub retinal implants carry a certain risk of infection or rejection as there is a foreign object being inserted into the eye of the patient. The main idea behind cortical implants is that they bypass the eye all together since the signals are sent from the camera device (worn on the head) to an electrode array which is connected to the visual cortex ( a part of the brain). The main hope for cortical implants is that they may one day become wireless. In this case, the user would have fewer “things” to carry with them seeing as they have to carry a battery pack on their waste at all times as well as super cool head gear which allows them to see. Wireless CI units would allow the user to look more “normal” since the only thing about them that would be different is the fact that they would be wearing sunglasses all the time. The chip that would relay signals and images to the brain would be implanted inside the tissue of the brain itself; this implant is known as a penetrating implant. At this point, scientists have yet to refine this process of penetrating implants, but this discovery is just on the horizon now. And when they have perfected the system of penetrating implants and sending signals to the visual cortex, cortical implants will become a much more popular form of visual prosthesis.

http://www.jwen.com/rp/articles/cortical.html

http://science.jrank.org/pages/543/Artificial-Vision-Cortical-implants.html