Researchers develop artificial retina from silicon

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University have made a breakthrough in the field of vision. Kareem Amir Zaghloul and Kwabena Boahen have proposed a silicon retina that reproduces signals in the optic nerve, a technology which could be used to provide vision to those who suffer from blindness-related diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa.

Unlike previous attempts to create an artificial retina, which relied on external cameras and processors, the silicon retina integrates many functions of the mammalian retina in a package that could be suitable for implantation.

“Here, we present a silicon retina modeled on neural circuitry in both the outer and the inner retina,” Zaghloul and Boahen introduced in their paper for the Journal of Neural Engineering. “It is constructed at a scale comparable to the human retina and uses under a tenth of a watt, thereby satisfying the requirements of a fully implantable prosthesis.”