From a press release from the University of Washington:
“Various sight recovery therapies are being developed by companies around the world, offering new hope for people who are blind. But little is known about what the world will look like to patients who undergo those procedures.
A new University of Washington study seeks to answer that question and offers visual simulations of what someone with restored vision might see.”
“The first panel shows the ideal ‘scoreboard model’ – what we’re trying to achieve.
The middle panel shows a simulation of the effects of electrical stimulation. We assume that electrical stimulation will simultaneously cause responses in both ON- and OFF pathways – that’s what causes the weird edge effects, and will also result in some stimulation of ganglion cell axons – that’s what causes the ‘streaks’.
The right panels shows a simulation of optogenetics and small molecule photoswitch stimulation. This movie is based on assuming that only ON-centre retinal pathways are selectively stimulated – that causes the edge effects, and the timing of responses is sluggish compared to natural vision – that’s what causes the child on the scooter to ‘disappear’.”
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