From: ramprasa@ukraine.corp.mot.com
Subject: Re: SCI: neural interfacing? what is the state of the art
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 09:43:01 CDT


Kris Stevens writes:

>One of my friends just told me about a rticle he read in either a
>popular science or Omni magazine.  From what he told me, experiments
>are being done on blind people using electrodes or some sort of hook
>up too the persons brain than signals much like those sent to a TV are
>sent to the brain.  The doctors have been able to so far project basic
>shapes and colours into the blind mans world.  Sorry I can't be more
>specific.

An article about this appeared in the April 18th edition of the
Chicago Tribune (Section 1). Briefly, the steps are as follows (taken
from article):

1. Camera mounted on the frames of eye-glasses captures image.
2. Image is processed by a simple computer (located close to the camera) and
   transmitted as a radio signal.
3. Radio signal is sent from a tiny antenna next to the skin, and is picked up
   by a receiving antenna implanted inside the skull.
4. Signal goes to a 10x10 array of electrodes that penetrate the brains visual
   cortex at varying depths. A faint electrical current stimulates the visual
   cortex in a pattern that corresponds to the image seen by the camera. The
   brain "sees" the pattern as dots of light.

The article mentions Dr. Terry F. Hambrecht of NIH as one of the
researchers involved in this field.