View clinical trials related to Blindness, Acquired.
Filter by:Visual impairment is one of the ten most prevalent causes of disability and poses extraordinary challenges to individuals in our society that relies heavily on sight. Living with acquired blindness not only lowers the quality of life of these individuals, but also strains society's limited resources for assistance, care and rehabilitation. However, to date, there is no effective treatment for man patients who are visually handicapped as a result of degeneration or damage to the inner layers of the retina, the optic nerve or the visual pathways. Therefore, there are compelling reasons to pursue the development of a cortical visual prosthesis capable of restoring some useful sight in these profoundly blind patients. However, the quality of current prosthetic vision is still rudimentary. A major outstanding challenge is translating electrode stimulation into a code that the brain can understand. Interactions between the device electronics and the retinal neurophysiology lead to distortions that can severely limit the quality of the generated visual experience. Rather than aiming to one day restore natural vision (which may remain elusive until the neural code of vision is fully understood), one might be better off thinking about how to create practical and useful artificial vision now. The goal of this work is to address fundamental questions that will allow the development of a Smart Bionic Eye, a device that relies on AI-powered scene understanding to augment the visual scene (similar to the Microsoft HoloLens), tailored to specific real-world tasks that are known to diminish the quality of life of people who are blind (e.g., face recognition, outdoor navigation, reading, self-care).
This is an early feasibility study of a new device, the Orion Visual Cortical Prosthesis System. The device is intended to stimulate the surface of the visual cortex to induce visual perception in blind individuals.
In this study, the investigators intend to evaluate the use of a commercially available neurostimulator system, NeuroPace RNS System to stimulate the visual cortex. The NeuroPace RNS System has a proven record of safety and reliability was approved by the FDA in November 2013. The RNS System is indicated for use in patients with epilepsy and includes a skull implanted neurostimulator. No modification to the RNS System is required for this study. This study will use this device to better understand the effect of stimulation on the visual parts of the brain. The main purposes of this study are to confirm the desired location to implant a device in the visual cortex, determine the amount of energy needed to elicit vision, and assess the nature of the vision that is produced. This information is important to have early in the process of designing a visual cortical prosthesis that could eventually be used for commercial use.