Simulations of cortical prosthetic vision

Abstract

Cortical stimulation for restoring vision presents researchers with many challenges and questions. The extent of the human visual cortex varies up to 50% from one individual to another, cortical folding and sulci limit the area of implantation, and surgical difficulties make it difficult to implant electrodes to produce phosphenes in the whole visual space. Researchers are faced with question such as: which electrodes to use-surface electrodes that are easy to implant or intracortical fine-metal electrodes that have lower current requirements and have five times better resolution? How many phosphenes will be enough to give limited, but useful vision? How will cortical physiology affect phosphene maps? Will percepts be distinct dots or complex in nature? What will be the long term response to stimulation? Will the brain adapt to seeing through dotted images? Some of these questions can be answered by conducting human psychophysical tests. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.