By InvitationNot Applicable

AI-Powered Artificial Vision for Visual Prostheses

United States, Spain7 participantsStarted 2023-10-02

Plain-language summary

Visual impairment is one of the ten most prevalent causes of disability and poses extraordinary challenges to individuals in our society that relies heavily on sight. Living with acquired blindness not only lowers the quality of life of these individuals, but also strains society's limited resources for assistance, care and rehabilitation. However, to date, there is no effective treatment for man patients who are visually handicapped as a result of degeneration or damage to the inner layers of the retina, the optic nerve or the visual pathways. Therefore, there are compelling reasons to pursue the development of a cortical visual prosthesis capable of restoring some useful sight in these profoundly blind patients. However, the quality of current prosthetic vision is still rudimentary. A major outstanding challenge is translating electrode stimulation into a code that the brain can understand. Interactions between the device electronics and the retinal neurophysiology lead to distortions that can severely limit the quality of the generated visual experience. Rather than aiming to one day restore natural vision (which may remain elusive until the neural code of vision is fully understood), one might be better off thinking about how to create practical and useful artificial vision now. The goal of this work is to address fundamental questions that will allow the development of a Smart Bionic Eye, a device that relies on AI-powered scene understanding to augment the visual scene (similar to the Microsoft HoloLens), tailored to specific real-world tasks that are known to diminish the quality of life of people who are blind (e.g., face recognition, outdoor navigation, reading, self-care).

Who can participate

Age range18 Years

SexALL

See this in plain English?

AI-rewrites the medical criteria so a patient or caregiver can understand them. Always confirm with the trial site.

Criteria for inclusion of visual prosthesis users: * Subject must be at least 18 years of age; * Subject has been implanted with a visual prosthesis (e.g., Argus II, Orion, Cortivis) * Subject has healed from surgery and the surgeon has cleared the subject for programming; * Subject has the cognitive and communication ability to participate in the study (i.e., follow spoken directions, perform tests, and give feedback); * Subject is willing to conduct psychophysics testing up to 4-6 hours per day of testing on 3-5 consecutive days; * Subject is capable of understanding patient information materials and giving written informed consent; * Subject is able to walk unassisted. Criteria for inclusion of sighted control subjects: * Subject speaks English; * Subject must be at least 18 years of age; * Subject has visual acuity of 20/40 or better (corrected); * Subject has the cognitive and communication ability to participate in the study (i.e., follow spoken directions, perform tests, and give feedback); * Subject is capable of understanding participant information materials and giving written informed consent. * Subject is able to walk unassisted Exclusion criteria: * Visual prosthesis users: Subject is unwilling or unable to travel to testing facility for at least 3 days of testing within a one-week timeframe; * Sighted controls: Subject has a history of motion sickness or flicker vertigo * All: Subject has language or hearing impairment

What they're measuring

Phosphene shape

Timeframe: through study completion, an average of 1 year

Pattern discrimination accuracy

Timeframe: through study completion, an average of 1 year

Scene understanding performance

Timeframe: through study completion, an average of 1 year

Trial details

NCT IDNCT06117332

SponsorUniversity of California, Santa Barbara

Sponsor typeOTHER

Study typeINTERVENTIONAL

Primary completion2027-08-31

View on ClinicalTrials.gov More Blindness, Acquired trials

Plain-language summary

Who can participate

Age range18 Years

SexALL

See this in plain English?

AI-rewrites the medical criteria so a patient or caregiver can understand them. Always confirm with the trial site.