New Technology For Artificial Retinas
The ability to interface circuitry to cells seems to be keeping pace with the rest of the biotechnology revolution. Here, researchers are uncovering new data with the technology that will be used to build the next generation of artificial retinas: "This has been a fantastic journey through high-energy physics, neurobiology, technology, and human health ... We started out developing instruments to look for fundamental particles such as the top quark and the Higgs boson. Then we realized we could apply some of those technological concepts to studying neural systems. Now we are using the new technology for experiments that will help guide the design of future retinal prosthetic devices ... The device crammed 512 electrodes into an area of 1.7 square millimeters (about the size of a pinhead). Each of the team's experiments [recorded] the electrical activity of more than 250 cells simultaneously ... The high density and large number of the electrodes gave us the ability to pick out individual neurons and at the same time examine a whole collection of cells. If you had only a few electrodes, you might detect a single cell with unusual properties, but you wouldn't know what to do with it - it might just be a sick cell. ... We're working on many other cell types. This is just the tip of the iceberg."