title: Visual prostheses: the enabling technology to give sight to the blind.
abstract: Millions of patients are either slowly losing their vision or are already blind due to retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) or because of accidents or injuries. Employment of artificial means to treat extreme vision impairment has come closer to reality during the past few decades. Currently, many research groups work towards effective solutions to restore a rudimentary sense of vision to the blind. Aside from the efforts being put on replacing damaged parts of the retina by engineered living tissues or microfabricated photoreceptor arrays, implantable electronic microsystems, referred to as visual prostheses, are also sought as promising solutions to restore vision. From a functional point of view, visual prostheses receive image information from the outside world and deliver them to the natural visual system, enabling the subject to receive a meaningful perception of the image. This paper provides an overview of technical design aspects and clinical test results of visual prostheses, highlights past and recent progress in realizing chronic high-resolution visual implants as well as some technical challenges confronted when trying to enhance the functional quality of such devices.
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory for Integrated Circuits and Systems (ICAS), Electrical Engineering Department, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Hossein
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Maghami
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory for Integrated Circuits and Systems (ICAS), Electrical Engineering Department, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran ; Electrical Engineering Department, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
authors.forename: Amir Masoud
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Sodagar
authors.affiliation: Eye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Alireza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lashay
authors.affiliation: Eye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Riazi-Esfahani
authors.affiliation: Eye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Riazi-Esfahani
keywords: Electrical Stimulation; Medical Implants; Neural Prostheses; Visual Prostheses