Breakthrough technology gives hope to the blind
Published: March 9, 2006
More than one million people in the United States are legally blind.
Many of them once had vision, but tragically lost it.
Cheri Robertson is blind, but a new device allows her to see, not with her eyes, but with her brain.
This may sound confusing, but Cheri traveled to Portugal to become the sixteenth person in the world to have special electrodes implanted in her brain.
Dr. Kenneth Smith, of Saint Louis University stated, “They are really seeing. The brain is getting impulses just like when you and I see.”
A camera that is on the tip of Cheri’s glasses sends signals to a computer that’s strapped around her waist.
The computer then stimulates electrodes in the brain through a cord that attaches to the head.
Patients see flashes of light and outline each object.
The surgery is not performed in the U.S. yet, and for it to work, patients must have once had vision.
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