Bionic Eye: An Emerging Hope to See the Light

byAwabAbdallah

Blindness has been an incurable condition that many people have suffered from throughout the ages. Those who have suffered from blindness whether from birth or otherwise never had a choice other than praying and hoping for a miracle at least that was until now.

The Phoenix 99 bionic eye is a device made by the collaborative effort of biomedical researchers from the universities of Sydney and New South Wales. As the name implies, the Phoenix 99 is a system that aims to bring back some semblance of vision to patients with visual impairments. This system is composed of 2 parts that need to be implanted: a stimulator attached to the eye and a communication module positioned under the skin behind the ear. It is also wirelessly connected to a camera attached to some sunglasses which are to be worn by the patients.

The bionic eye works by stimulating the retina which is made up of a bunch of neurons at the back of the eye. In healthy eyes, those neurons turn light that is seen by the eye into electrical signals which are, in turn, sent to the brain. Some diseases cause degeneration in some of these cells, thus causing impairments in vision. The system works by directly testing out this project on sheep who spent three months with those bionic eyes and showed that the system did not cause any adverse reaction to animals and was overall products that have benefited multiple people around the world. For example, its product Argus II has been fitted to over 350 people around the globe and helped people with visual impairments see light and shapes. triggering the other cells, making the brain believe that the retinas sensed the light.

The team working on this project discovered that the device has “a very low impact on the neurons required to ‘trick’ the brain” and that it could also stay in place for a long time. They had started by