Definition
Cortical prostheses are a subgroup of visual neuroprostheses capable of eliciting visual percepts in profoundly blind people through direct stimulation of the visual part of the brain. This approach is the only treatment available for blindness caused by glaucoma, optic atrophy, or by diseases of the central visual pathways such as brain injuries or stroke.
Detailed Description
As blindness results from an interruption in the normal flow of signals along the visual pathways, a visual prosthesis has to excite the neurons of the pathway at some point after the damage site (Normann et al. 1996). The only requirement is that the device should contact with still functioning neural elements. Since retinal diseases frequently reduce visual acuity and result in non-curable blindness, several groups worldwide are working on the development of different prostheses...
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Fernandez, E. (2014). Visual Prosthesis, Cortical Devices. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_662-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_662-1
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