To develop a visual prostheses system by electrical stimulation of the visual cortex has been a goal of researchers for the last four decades. The results from experiments performed in the past provide the motivation for advancing the field towards a more sophisticated and practical system. The long-term objective of this research is to develop a continuously wearable intracortical visual prosthesis device. This system will capture the image in real time, process it and then deliver the corresponding signals to an implanted chip which in turn will stimulate the intracortically implanted electrodes. Researchers at Laboratory of Neural Prosthesis, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, are using the experience gained from the past experiments and the recent advancements in video-camera and electronic technology for developing a practical system which will be light in weight with low power consumption and contain enough flexibility, from a programming standpoint, to adapt to different subjects’ visuotopic mappings, psychophysical behavior and any long-term changes observed in the individual subject’s response.
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