Dynamic Stimulation of Visual Cortex Produces Form Vision in Sighted and Blind Humans
- PMID: 32413298
- PMCID: PMC7331799
- DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.033
Dynamic Stimulation of Visual Cortex Produces Form Vision in Sighted and Blind Humans
Abstract
A visual cortical prosthesis (VCP) has long been proposed as a strategy for restoring useful vision to the blind, under the assumption that visual percepts of small spots of light produced with electrical stimulation of visual cortex (phosphenes) will combine into coherent percepts of visual forms, like pixels on a video screen. We tested an alternative strategy in which shapes were traced on the surface of visual cortex by stimulating electrodes in dynamic sequence. In both sighted and blind participants, dynamic stimulation enabled accurate recognition of letter shapes predicted by the brain's spatial map of the visual world. Forms were presented and recognized rapidly by blind participants, up to 86 forms per minute. These findings demonstrate that a brain prosthetic can produce coherent percepts of visual forms.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03344848.
Keywords: blind; brain; dynamic; electrical; electrodes; human; phosphene; prosthetic; stimulation; visual.
Published by Elsevier Inc.
Conflict of interest statement
Declaration of interests W.H.B., N.P., and D.Y. receive research funding from Second Sight Medical Products, a manufacturer of visual cortical prosthetics. N.P. is also a consultant to Second Sight. A provisional patent application describing dynamic current steering (serial no. 62/638,365) was filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office on March 5, 2018, entitled “Systems and Computer-Implemented Methods of Conveying a Visual Image to a Blind Subject Fitted with a Visual Prosthesis.”
Figures
![Figure 1.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/7331799/bin/nihms-1586199-f0002.gif)
![Figure 2.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/7331799/bin/nihms-1586199-f0003.gif)
![Figure 3.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/7331799/bin/nihms-1586199-f0004.gif)
![Figure 4.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/7331799/bin/nihms-1586199-f0005.gif)
![Figure 5.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/7331799/bin/nihms-1586199-f0006.gif)
![Figure 6.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/7331799/bin/nihms-1586199-f0007.gif)
Comment in
-
Writing to the Mind's Eye of the Blind.Cell. 2020 May 14;181(4):758-759. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.03.014. Cell. 2020. PMID: 32413296
Similar articles
-
Neurophysiological considerations for visual implants.Brain Struct Funct. 2022 May;227(4):1523-1543. doi: 10.1007/s00429-021-02417-2. Epub 2021 Nov 13. Brain Struct Funct. 2022. PMID: 34773502 Review.
-
Visual percepts evoked with an intracortical 96-channel microelectrode array inserted in human occipital cortex.J Clin Invest. 2021 Dec 1;131(23):e151331. doi: 10.1172/JCI151331. J Clin Invest. 2021. PMID: 34665780 Free PMC article.
-
Shape perception via a high-channel-count neuroprosthesis in monkey visual cortex.Science. 2020 Dec 4;370(6521):1191-1196. doi: 10.1126/science.abd7435. Science. 2020. PMID: 33273097
-
Electrical Stimulation of Visual Cortex: Relevance for the Development of Visual Cortical Prosthetics.Annu Rev Vis Sci. 2017 Sep 15;3:141-166. doi: 10.1146/annurev-vision-111815-114525. Epub 2017 Jul 28. Annu Rev Vis Sci. 2017. PMID: 28753382 Free PMC article. Review.
-
Phosphenes produced by electrical stimulation of human occipital cortex, and their application to the development of a prosthesis for the blind.J Physiol. 1974 Dec;243(2):553-76. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.1974.sp010766. J Physiol. 1974. PMID: 4449074 Free PMC article.
Cited by
-
Great expectations: Aligning visual prosthetic development with implantee needs.medRxiv [Preprint]. 2024 Mar 14:2024.03.12.24304186. doi: 10.1101/2024.03.12.24304186. medRxiv. 2024. PMID: 38559196 Free PMC article. Preprint.
-
Axonal stimulation affects the linear summation of single-point perception in three Argus II users.J Neural Eng. 2024 Apr 8;21(2):026031. doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/ad31c4. J Neural Eng. 2024. PMID: 38457841 Free PMC article.
-
Holographic Brain Theory: Super-Radiance, Memory Capacity and Control Theory.Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Feb 18;25(4):2399. doi: 10.3390/ijms25042399. Int J Mol Sci. 2024. PMID: 38397075 Free PMC article.
-
Towards biologically plausible phosphene simulation for the differentiable optimization of visual cortical prostheses.Elife. 2024 Feb 22;13:e85812. doi: 10.7554/eLife.85812. Elife. 2024. PMID: 38386406 Free PMC article.
-
Next generation therapeutics for retinal neurodegenerative diseases.J Control Release. 2024 Mar;367:708-736. doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2024.01.063. Epub 2024 Feb 10. J Control Release. 2024. PMID: 38295996 Review.
References
-
- Bak M, Girvin JP, Hambrecht FT, Kufta CV, Loeb GE, and Schmidt EM (1990). Visual sensations produced by intracortical microstimulation of the human occipital cortex. Med Biol Eng Comput 28, 257–259. - PubMed
-
- Bosking WH, Foster B, Sun P, Beauchamp MS, and Yoshor D (2018a). Rules Governing Perception of Multiple Phosphenes by Human Observers. In bioRxiv.
Publication types
MeSH terms
Associated data
Grants and funding
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Miscellaneous