Development of a test bench to assess visual prostheses

Development of the systems of visual prostheses by human Intervention to restore functional vision. Blindness suffering has recently undergone a renaissance that has been fueled by a group or combination of celebrity and government interest and progress in the field of bioengineering which led to the discovery of a neuroprosthetic system. Blindness is generally considered one of the most serious handicaps of human beings. Due to the complexity of the visual system and despite numerous research efforts, rehabilitation developments in this field seem to be slow. However, this pessimistic picture might be changed soon since technological advances offer a whole new range of possibilities. Several projects aimed towards developing visual prostheses have been launched recently. Such devices would restore lost function bypassing the damaged structures and electrically stimulating the remaining visual pathway. Obviously, damage to other structures should be avoided and the „artificial vision" provided by the prosthesis has to be useful to the patient. A number of important factors (electrical, surgical, biocompatibility, psychophysical) have thus to be thoroughly investigated and considered. This work intends to set the necessary background to understand visual perception in the context of artificial vision and the importance of the determination of minimum requirements for a visual prosthesis to restore useful vision. First, the basic anatomy and physiology of the visual system will be outlined and the basic issues of blindness and low vision will be discussed. Further along, the concept of visual prostheses will be explained in more detail. The different design approaches will be described, summarizing the current status of the research