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The researchers developed implants containing 1,024 electrodes – conductors that carry electrical currents in and out of the brain – and implanted them in the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual information, in two macaque monkeys.
By sending electrical signals to the brain of monkeys, researchers created “phosphenes” – points of light that could be “seen” or perceived by the brain, and can be used to create the illusion of shapes and objects. .
Principal researcher Pieter Roelfsema told CNN that the team wanted to show that it was possible to induce “vision of objects” by direct electrical stimulation of the brain, explaining that the visual cortex has “a kind of visual map of space”.
“You can work with it like a matrix board along the highway. If you boost or turn on multiple boards, you can see patterns,” he told CNN.
The monkeys performed a series of tasks and, using their machine vision, they were able to recognize shapes and “percepts,” including lines, moving dots and letters, the researchers reported on Friday in results published in the journal Science.
Wider implications for sight restoration
The team believe that such technology could one day be used to simulate sight in blind people who have been able to see at some point in their lives.
Roelfsema told CNN that when people’s eyes stop working and they lose their sight, their cortex is deprived of input.
“What you do then is bypass the faulty eyes and plug directly into the images you normally see in the visual cortex,” he said.
“If you stimulate with an electrode, you get a point of light. If you stimulate with a pattern of electrodes, you can create a pattern of those dots, and from those patterns, of dots, you can reproduce meaningful images. “, did he declare. explaining that the dots could be used to create letters of the alphabet.
In the future, Roelfsema said, a person could wear a camera on their glasses that could translate the images into electrical stimulation patterns for the brain and send them to the electrodes.
“The electrodes would then activate the appropriate cells, and the person could maybe see a passing car, or a person walking on the road. This will give rise to some form of vision,” he said, adding that ‘he hopes the technology will be ready for testing in humans by 2023.
“ Holy grail ” of research
“The ability to artificially impose patterns of neural activity that resemble those of the brain is a holy grail of neuroprosthetic research,” Tom Mrsic-Flogel, director of the Sainsbury Wellcome Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior, told CNN. ‘University College London. .
Mrsic-Flogel, who was not involved in the research, told CNN that the Amsterdam team “demonstrates that non-human primates can respond to complex patterns of stimulation in the visual cortex in a similar way when visualization of normal shapes.
“While we’ll never know what another animal is perceiving, it’s tempting to assume that electrical stimulation resulted in visual perception,” he said.
“This transformative study adds to the growing body of evidence that links neural activity and sensation.
“Studies like these will pave the way for brain implants that increase brain function when it is compromised, for example when we lose peripheral vision or hearing,” he added.
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