I'm a visual systems neuroscientist working in the Department of Ophthalmology under José Alain Sahel at Pitt. José is working towards an international clinical trial of a visual cortical prosthesis. My own work concerns how we learn the meaning of visual information, and I hope to contribute to the prosthesis project by helping develop tools to aid training of patients to make use of their newly restored sensorium. Other researchers here at Pitt such as Rob Gaunt have done work on neural prosthetics for proprioceptipn, touch. Other responders are right that the major approach used today is electrical microstimulation. However, in my opinion optogenetic approaches - using light to stimulate cellular (in this case neuronal) activity - hold more long term promise. In fact, José recently demonstrated a retinal prosthesis based on transfecting an opsin into the normally light insensitive retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) of a blind patient.
jamespherman t1_j5rkjaz wrote
Reply to How will more complex sensations be programmed for full-dive/brain interface VR? by Choice_Card
I'm a visual systems neuroscientist working in the Department of Ophthalmology under José Alain Sahel at Pitt. José is working towards an international clinical trial of a visual cortical prosthesis. My own work concerns how we learn the meaning of visual information, and I hope to contribute to the prosthesis project by helping develop tools to aid training of patients to make use of their newly restored sensorium. Other researchers here at Pitt such as Rob Gaunt have done work on neural prosthetics for proprioceptipn, touch. Other responders are right that the major approach used today is electrical microstimulation. However, in my opinion optogenetic approaches - using light to stimulate cellular (in this case neuronal) activity - hold more long term promise. In fact, José recently demonstrated a retinal prosthesis based on transfecting an opsin into the normally light insensitive retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) of a blind patient.