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This Article is From Nov 05, 2010

Implant gives the blind a glimpse at sight

Berlin: A ground-breaking retinal implant has allowed three people to see shapes and objects for the first time since they lost their sight to an eye disease.

Research teams in Germany have been working on a way to combat a genetic disease that kills off light sensitive cells in the eye, leaving the person blind.

They came up with an electronic chip that's implanted in the retina. That device then captures images using an external camera mounted on a pair of glasses and a signal is sent to the brain.

Not all blind patients can benefit from this, especially those who have suffered brain or optic nerve damage. However a handful of people are using the device now and teams are already working on ways to improve it.

"For somebody to go out and say 'wow blind people can see again,' it's not true, it doesn't happen like that, but for somebody to say 'people who have lost all or most of their vision are able to distinguish shapes and are learning to see something again that's very exciting," says Jonathan Abro of Retinitis Pigmentosa.

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