编者按: This article is based on interviews conducted in 2020 and first appeared in Moran's 2020 Focus annual report.
埃尔切, 西班牙——58岁, 伯纳·戈麦斯在过去的16年里完全失明.
She was not able to take one last glimpse of the school where she worked as a teacher for more than a decade before her career was cut short. 她没有看到她的两个儿子的脸随着他们长大成人而变化和成熟. She cannot take in views of the orange trees in the foothills of Valencia on her daily walks or look into her husband’s eyes.
但在2018年末, 在大学的研究实验室里, 一条单条——一条由白光构成的白线——出现在她脑海里的午夜画布上. 在安静中, nondescript room filled with scientists who had created the image using a tiny microelectrode array implanted in Gomez’s brain, 她喊着说, “我能看到一些东西!"
在她的敬畏之下，是一种共同经历的喜悦. The scientists could see a line drawn on a poster board in the lab; now, she could see one, too.
戈麦斯成功地测试了 莫兰| Cortivis假肢，由约翰一. 莫兰眼科中心和犹他大学生物医学工程研究员 理查德·“迪克”·诺曼博士第一次创造了人工视觉. Profoundly blind users without any 愿景 wear eyeglasses equipped with a miniature video camera; specialized software encodes the visual data and sends it to the implanted microelectrode array to create images in the visual cortex.
而一个国际研究团队合作推动科学向前发展, 它的进步取决于像戈麦斯这样的人的勇气.
“这个假肢可以给盲人更多的行动能力. 它可以让他们很容易地识别一个人、门口或汽车. 它可以增加独立性和安全性. 这就是大发娱乐正在努力的方向."
理查德·“迪克”·诺曼博士
合作创造人工视觉
在西班牙米格尔·埃尔南德斯大学埃尔切校区， 爱德华多·费尔南德斯，医学博士, 管理着一个由20名科学家组成的生物工程实验室，从事各种项目 in close collaboration with Hospital IMED Elche—artificial 愿景 among them.
In his office and on computer screens in the lab are images of his Moran collaborators and mentors, 生物工程师诺曼和视网膜神经回路专家海尔加·科尔布, 博士学位. 和一组神经学家一起工作, 心理学家, 工程师, 医生, 和外科医生, Fernandez and Normann are now putting decades of 研究 needed to create the prosthesis to the test.
对费尔南德斯, 这项工作是他大发娱乐病人的人生梦想的一部分, 20世纪90年代，他在莫兰大学完成了博士后工作.
"During that time, I went to a talk on artificial 愿景 given by Dick," said Fernandez, now a 莫兰兼职研究教授. “对我来说，这真的很神奇. 我有生以来第一次听说人们在研究人工视觉. 那是30年前的事了，从那以后迪克和我就一直在合作."
费尔南德斯与戈麦斯相识于2007年, 在他进行的研究中使用了经颅磁刺激. 在那个研究中, Normann and Fernandez used an electromagnetic coil placed on her scalp to stimulate neurons in the visual cortex to produce phosphenes, 或者是明眼人和盲人都能感知到的白色闪光. 戈麦斯特别擅长描述光幻视, 尽管他们只出现了一瞬间.
几年后，费尔南德斯联系戈麦斯测试视觉假体. 的努力, 他告诉她, would involve brain surgery and months of intense experiments that would require her to temporarily relocate from Valencia to Elche. 主要目标是评估安全性, 他说, but the 研究 team hoped the prosthesis would turn video input into images constructed of phosphene patterns that Gomez could perceive.
Gomez would be the first person in the world to have a key part of the prosthesis—Normann’s famous Utah Electrode Array (UEA)—implanted in her visual cortex in an attempt to generate images depicting the world outside.
她毫不犹豫地答应了.
大发娱乐盲人的未来
戈麦斯从小就喜欢科学，上学时也喜欢. 在大学期间，她喜欢上了生物化学，并决定教书. 当她失明时，她已经教了15年的高中生物.
She had just renewed her driver’s license that January before she quickly developed toxic optic neuropathy, 一种迅速破坏连接眼睛和大脑的视神经的疾病. 几天之内，戈麦斯就完全失去了视力和对光的感知.
“这是新的一年，”戈麦斯说，“就像这样，这对我来说是一个新的生活."
She spent months reassuring her sons, then ages 9 and 16, and learning to live with her new reality. 与西班牙盲人国家组织合作, 戈麦斯学会了如何尽可能地独立. The organization taught her everything from how to locate food on a plate and shop at the supermarket to how smartphones and computers could assist in everyday life.
她的丈夫, 何塞•路易斯•, 已经在做家务和照顾孩子了吗, 但现在，他作为她伴侣的角色变得更加重要了. 在他们33年的婚姻生活中，他的支持使一切顺利. 在家里，她不是盲人——只是伯纳.
When she spoke with Fernandez about the prosthesis experiments, she had accepted her new life.
“我知道我是个盲人，而且我将永远是盲人，”她说. “但我觉得我将来可以做些什么来大发娱乐人们. 我仍然有这种感觉."
实验是如何创造人工视觉的
在一个三小时的手术中, 一个神经外科团队只需要大约一分钟的时间来植入微小的微电极阵列, 比一便士小得多, 进入她大脑的视觉区. 手术如预期进行，没有并发症.
在接下来的六个月里, Gomez spent up to four hours each day in the lab with Fernandez and his team conducting experiments that yielded important data. 这并不容易.
视力正常的人失明后，仍能自发地体验到光幻视. 随着时间的推移，这些会消失. 但戈麦斯的手术诱导了新的自发光幻视的产生. 而这些随着时间的推移而减少, she had to learn to distinguish a naturally occurring phosphene from one evoked by electrical stimulation via the array. 光是这个过程就花了整整两个月. The work was methodical as 研究ers asked Gomez to describe what she perceived and even rate the brightness of each phosphene.
The experiments ultimately determined the amount of electrical current that could safely be used to produce phosphenes. 该团队还证实了用于假肢的设备的生物相容性.
除了辨认线条外，戈麦斯还描述说看到了一个大O和一个小O." She even brought one large and one small sequin to the lab from home to explain the images. 让戈麦斯更熟悉唤起的光幻视，并引进品种, lab members created a video game for her to play: a simple black-and-white maze that she moved a circle through using visual images created with the prosthesis.
而一位神经外科医生只在戈麦斯的大脑中植入了一个阵列, published 研究 conducted by Normann indicates between seven and ten arrays in the visual cortex, 一起工作, 能否产生更详细的图像，以大发娱乐提供有用的视觉.
“这可以给盲人更多的行动，”诺曼说. “它可以让他们很容易地识别一个人、门口或汽车. 它可以增加独立性和安全性. 这就是大发娱乐正在努力的方向."
人工视觉的未来
走到这一步的工作是艰苦的.
“当大发娱乐30多年前开始这个项目时, 在这个领域没有人做任何事情, 大发娱乐需要很多基本信息,诺曼说。.
在20世纪90年代研发出东安格利亚和植入它所需的独特工具之后, Normann conducted years of experiments to answer key questions in the quest for artificial 愿景. 其结果是一个包含100多篇已发表论文的基础工作体系, 被世界各地的科学家引用.
“我希望有这样的假肢，即使它很简单. 作为一个盲人，你不知道门在哪里，窗户在哪里，也不知道人在哪里. 有了这个，你至少知道有什么东西在那里."
贝赫那戈麦斯
Normann will now work with Fernandez to conduct similar experiments with as many as four other patients in 西班牙 before beginning additional 研究 efforts in the United States. 下一组实验将使用更复杂的编码器系统, capable of stimulating more electrodes simultaneously to reproduce more complex visual images.
莫兰首席执行官兰德尔·J·奥尔森说, MD, Moran / Cortivis假体的研究预示着该领域的一个显著飞跃.
“结果是惊人的, 我对假肢的可能性感到无比兴奋,奥尔森说. “多年来, Dick and his collaborators have been pushing the boundaries of what people believed to be possible. 他们的奉献得到了惊人的回报."
如果没有戈麦斯，假肢的最新进展是不可能的, 谁说她会尽其所能地接听电话. 在实验结束时，外科医生从戈麦斯的大脑中取出了该阵列, 但她仍然是团队的关键成员, currently assisting by speaking with potential new prosthesis study participants who may have questions or concerns.
她并不觉得自己特别勇敢, only clear about her decision to participate in the 研究 and the useful feeling she has derived from it.
考虑了一会儿后，戈麦斯说：“总得有人去做."
关于犹他电极阵列（UEA）
由理查德·“迪克”·诺曼博士发明，UEA只有4毫米乘4毫米.
它有100.5-mm-long microelectrodes that can both record and replay the electrical activities of neurons communicating in the brain.
Normann 首先在截肢者身上使用这种阵列 评价安全性和有效性, and it has allowed the amputees to control artificial limbs simply with their desire to move a finger or hand. 在西班牙, 这个团队由诺曼和爱德华多·费尔南德斯领导, MD, 博士学位, 首次将UEA植入大脑视觉皮层.