三十年前，犹他大学的生物工程师 理查德的. Normann, 博士学位, had a radical new idea he hoped might create artificial sight for people who had lost their 愿景 due to disease. If the eyes couldn’t function anymore, why not let the brain do all the work?
His inspiration resulted in the creation of the 犹他电极阵列 (UEA), a tiny device implanted into the brain that may soon bring 人工视觉 one step closer to reality.
现在，他的一位合作者，犹他大学的神经学家 亚历山德拉Angelucci, MD, 博士学位, is building on Normann’s groundbreaking 研究 to develop a next generation array. 这是一次技术飞跃，类似于从翻盖手机到iPhone的转变, and the latest advance in the quest to understand the brain’s remarkable ability to create 愿景.
寻找“合适的工具”
诺曼还是个孩子的时候，就是个修补匠. 他的父亲拥有并安装了弹球机, 诺曼自己的作品很快就从废弃的零件中诞生了. 在大学, 他在工程方面的天赋是显而易见的, but Normann began to develop an interest in the inner workings of the body and took up physiology.
He combined the two disciplines as a University of Utah professor of biomedical engineering and ophthalmology and visual sciences, and in the 1980s decided to investigate how to restore sight to those who had lost it to disease.
"People had been dreaming about restoring sight to the blind for quite a while, 但是他们没有合适的工具,诺曼说. “所以大发娱乐决定举办一个晚宴, 邀请来自大发娱乐学校和全国各地的科学家和工程师. We talked about what was keeping us from actually making blind people see. 那晚之后，大发娱乐明白了大发娱乐真正需要的是什么."
诺曼在晚宴上的顿悟促成了东安格利亚大学的成立. 比一便士小得多, the device uses a series of silicon microelectrodes implanted into the brain to record and replay the electrical activity of neurons. It’s this communication between neurons that creates 愿景, and countless other body functions.
在东安格利亚之前, 研究ers had only tracked the electrical activity of just a few neurons in one location of the brain using a single electrode positioned on the organ’s surface or implanted in the brain. 使用多个电极是一项技术突破, and successful testing of the device has been a bit like something straight out of a science fiction novel.
Normann and a colleague—University of Utah Bioengineering Associate Professor 格雷戈里•克拉克, 博士学位— decided the safest and most practical way to initially evaluate the UEA would be with the help of forearm amputees. 在这些实验中, people were able to move a motorized prosthetic hand with their thoughts and experience a sense of touch. 它是如何工作的？? 一个人想要移动他们的手. 东安格利亚大学的, 植入手臂的神经中, 记录下这些神经信号并把它们发送给假肢. The success of those and many other experiments led to the commercial licensing of the UEA, 被世界各地的科学家使用.
People had been dreaming about restoring sight to the blind for quite a while, 但是他们没有合适的工具.
理查德的. Normann博士
现在, Normann hopes to realize his dream to restore useful 愿景 with the UEA by bypassing the eyes and going straight to the brain. The idea: a person could wear glasses with a video camera attached to record real-world images. 东安格利亚大学的, 通过连接的电线接收来自摄像机的输入, could translate the images into a form of 人工视觉 the brain would recognize as sight.
尽管那个视觉会被像素化, it should be just enough to allow a blind person to navigate through a doorway or around objects on the street without assistance, 大大提高了他们的生活质量.
经过几十年的研究和令人印象深刻的合作者名单, 诺曼计划开始植入东安格利亚, 叫做Moran/Cortivis视觉假体, 在西班牙有视力的病人中. "The name ‘Cortivis’ reflects the relationship between Moran and our Spanish collaborators,诺曼说。. If successful, the testing should produce a blueprint for creating artificial sight.
以突破为基础
Angelucci is among Normann’s collaborators, sharing his hope for restoring sight. 但要让她参与到这个项目中来，还得费一番周折.
“我拒绝了，”安杰鲁奇说 神经科学家 who has devoted the past two decades of her 研究 to understanding how the brain functions. "I thought if we didn’t know exactly how neurons in the visual cortex work, 大发娱乐怎么知道如何修复视力?"
诺曼鼓励她要胸怀大志，敢于冒险. The success of the UEA in controlling forearm prosthetics changed her mind.
“今天, we totally complement each other: the UEA is a great tool to understand how the brain works,安吉鲁奇说。, adding that she uses Normann’s technology "to ask neuroscience questions, 以他的创新为基础."
I thought if we didn’t know exactly how neurons in the visual cortex work, 大发娱乐怎么知道如何修复视力?
亚历山德拉·安杰鲁奇，医学博士，博士
他是美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）倡议的一部分 绘制人类大脑的地图, is using the UEA as the basis for a next generation of neuron interfacing array, 叫做犹他光电阵列（UOA）. She’s collaborating with University of Utah Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professors Steve Blair, 博士学位, 和洛伦·里斯, 博士学位, on an NIH BRAIN Initiative grant to adapt the UEA to use with optogenetics. 光遗传学, 哪一种是用光而不是电来激活神经元的, 能让她克服东安格利亚的一个限制吗.
"Any neuron near an electrode in a UEA implanted in the brain will get ‘turned on’ by electrical currents injected into the brain via the UEA electrode, 不管他们往哪个方向走,安吉鲁奇解释道. “但大脑不是这样工作的. The brain gets activated in specific pathways depending on specific tasks."
与光遗传学, Angelucci can fine-tune which neurons are turned on to provide an unprecedented level of control that represents the next step in 人工视觉 研究.
虽然安吉鲁奇和诺曼的设备设计相似, the UOA uses 100 glass needles topped with lightemitting diodes (commonly known as LED lights) instead of metal electrodes.
UOA的发展仍处于早期阶段. But it’s a step in the right direction to answer questions about how 愿景 works.
“大发娱乐越了解大脑中的神经元是如何交流的, the more we’ll be able to repeat those patterns to re-create visual function,安吉鲁奇说。.
Normann has been an inspiration, she continued, "and now, I’m directly involved in restoring 愿景."