Kind: captions
Language: en
what happens when Engineers take aim at
a biological system that is far more
complex like Vision restoring the
ability to see with an idea that once
seemed like science
fiction
Armes separ the $6 million man I have to
say if there was any inspiration that
that show was I can't hold it she's
breaking up she's break
we can rebuild him we have the
technology When I Was An undergraduate I
became interested in how bionic
Electronics could be mated with the
human
body for more than 20 years Phil tro and
his interdisciplinary research group
have been pioneering a technology
designed to restore some Vision to those
who have lost the ability to
see we've been using Prosthetics to to
restore our body's abilities for
thousands of
years one of the most useful Prosthetics
has been the very humble glasses right
so you have a sense you have a sense of
sight but then there's a distortion in
the curvature of your eye so then you
use a lens to compensate for that but
this new device takes visual Prosthetics
to the next level the idea is to take
the information you capture from a
camera
and bypass the eyes and optic nerve and
go directly to the brain the state of
neuroengineering is at its infancy with
very very promising avenues for growth
one that has been for a very long time a
dream of Engineers is to be able to
interface with the nervous
system Phil's group is the first to
receive FDA permission to implant into
the brain of blind person a network of
Wireless
stimulators each just 5 mm
across as you see the electrodes
sticking out there even if they meet the
criteria the visual the medical criteria
they have to be willing to embark on
brain surgery it's hard to find someone
that fits into all of that
criteria the team has qualified their
first participant Brian busard who lost
his vision completely several years ago
this a headband my shoes it does
actually that's perfect I was kidding
Brian agreed to have a group of these
stimulators surgically implanted in his
visual cortex when you're considering
designing something that will be
implanted in a person one of the safety
checks is making sure that whatever that
thing is it doesn't actually harm a
person and how did you sleep last night
on a scale of 1 to 10 for the trial he
is referred to as the participant not
the patient as his collaboration with
the entire team is essential I was going
to be the first one in my lifetime I get
to be the first of something that could
change people's lives later on you know
like who was the first person to walk on
the
moon one small step for man One S Le for
man artificial Vision has really been
enabled by advances in imaging
technology the development of of
incredibly tiny detectors and Incredibly
tiny communication signaling
transmitters have enabled these
implantable
devices the implants in Brian's brain
are receivers for signals that in turn
stimulate the brain the coil transmits
signals that they hope the brain will
interpret as visual
information each of those 25 arrays has
16 electrodes that we can stimulate on
command and the goal is to use those
electrodes to activate the healthy
neurons that are still there and just
haven't been receiving normal visual
input for a
while what do I see probably the closest
thing I would say is if you had blips on
a radar screen the process requires
creating a new kind of visual language
imagine getting these funny flashing
lights from either retinol or a cortical
prosthesis that don't look anything like
what Vision used to be and then your
brain is beginning to discover there's a
message to the madness there is some
pattern in here and if I can try to find
out how things hang together then then I
can learn to understand what's around me
people used to think well we need to
recreate the signals from the eyes into
that same neural code but we've seen
examples where if you establish a an
interface with those areas and you get
give them a consistent input the brain
will adapt and interpret those as best
as it can as Brian continues to adapt
the work has progressed from the chair
to a smaller carts sized version of the
system connected by a cord with
researcher Michael Barry pushing the
cart and following behind so we're
putting on the visible light glass the
base idea is to capture images with a
camera
technologically somehow convert those
images to the commands that go to each
of these little
modules stand up slowly but to your
left the first real exciting thing for
me was when we added a camera to it and
it went like this with my hand and then
I went like oh there's my thumb so that
was the first time in probably six years
years that I had a sensation a
vision that was
exciting it gave me a
system so what we're going to work on
today is a task of finding an open chair
can you identify which chair is
open right there great job yeah good job
what we're providing is really a
targeting system it says for whatever
the camera is detecting is something
there it says where something is but you
don't know what it is let me find the
cart that way we don't pull the cords
hey said do you want to try something
infrared the team decides to expand the
testing to include a camera that can see
wavelengths of light beyond what humans
can see yep so now we have the thermal
sensor
why should you limit your wavelength to
the visible range why not allow someone
to see in the thermal range with his
limited vision infrared allows Brian to
distinguish people and animals by their
body heat for this task you will find
there's one occupied
chair well there's Grace right there hi
Grace nice to meet
you but you still have the big donut in
the back of your head still have wires
for the camera if you walk too fast well
we can pull the coil you lose signal and
you got to stop and reset there are a
lot of technologies that work
beautifully in the lab right where you
have a lot of space it's dedicated and
everything works well um but the reality
is people move they have their lives
they want to live the way they want to
live and be mobile nice to meet you with
the basic technology working the team
has been building a system that
condenses an entire cart of equipment
into a wearable device so Brian can go
mobile the camera records images that
are translated by a mini computer into
signals his brain can
understand these are then sent through a
transmitter and beamed into Brian's
implants reaching his visual
cortex okay so I'm going to hke this on
your belt okay you should be good to go
we're good to go you're freed
up Trish was right there she moved now
she's right there I was just going to
tell you you can walk to me I was going
to say she's right there yeah I'm right
here okay so I'm guessing this is tables
over
here or somebody or
something as soon as he didn't have that
starting and stopping of trying to keep
the cart right behind him yeah he just
decided to just walk around the room and
see what all was
here becoming untethered was a big step
it gave me the flexibility to move and
and and try and figure it out quicker or
on my own okay there's something here
this another table yep so now we have
the thermal
sensor there's somebody right there you
found me hey watching Brian see his wife
without his eyes is a powerful
validation of all their hard work the
moment day when he had on the mobile
unit and he walked to his wife and saw
her I just thought that was really a
special moment she didn't make a sound
but you went to her you found her in the
room do you think oh my gosh this man
has lost his vision and now he can see
something with the help of this
engineering system strap to him all of
these things have come together all that
iteration and testing in protocols the
door it's pretty
amazing this person is volunteering
themselves and putting themselves at
risk they're doing so not because they
expect to get Vision back it's for
advancement of knowledge it's for what
we learn now will make possible what
will become standard of care 100 years
from now somebody right there just from
a human standpoint I think we should be
wired that uh we want to leave the world
a better place than it was when we got
here the following day the team gathers
to review their progress with the mobile
system did it accomplish the goal of
making you feel more autonomous and
liberated well full disclosure if it
would have been nice out yesterday it
would have been oops I made a left hand
turn and go out the
door now it's okay well what do we
prioritize next probably the
next step would be as if we can
combine either the two cameras into one
or even adding the second visual camera
so we can get depth into it from an
engineering perspective engineering is
not just
technology stemming from math and
science and the question we're asking is
how can an artificial interface like
this be used to provide useful sensory
information for someone who has
blindness we do have now the interface
albeit in somewhat simpler form than
some would like but we do have the
interface and we are now answering the
questions did a a highrisk high payoff
engineering challenge giving Vision to
someone who's vision impaired is just
such a Holy Grail um engineering
strategy and they've done it our
aspirations are high and we only get
there by making stepbystep incremental
progress hi there he is hey buddy I
think we're proud of the fact that maybe
we got there first good boy I think
we're done
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