History
Foerster was the first to discover that electrical stimulation of the occipital cortex could be used to create visual percepts, phosphenes. The first application of an implantable stimulator for vision restoration was developed by Drs. Brindley and Lewin in 1968. This experiment demonstrated the viability of creating visual percepts using direct electrical stimulation, and it motivated the development of several other implantable devices for stimulation of the visual pathway, including retinal implants. Retinal stimulation devices, in particular, have become a focus of research as approximately half of all cases of blindness are caused by retinal damage. The development of retinal implants has also been motivated in part by the advancement and success of cochlear implants, which has demonstrated that humans can regain significant sensory function with limited input.
Read more about this topic: Retinal Implant
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)