This article published in the Daily Mail is really interesting, and the story comes, as they say, right out of left field.
Daily Mail 2nd Sept 2009
It concerns a device that takes an electrical signal from a camera, processes it through a computer in much the same way as is done for the Argus II retinal implant, and then attempts to relay it not through the eye and optic nerve, but via the tongue.
I’ve asked for comments about this from our medical advisors and of course I will post more here or on our main website http://www.brps.org.uk as soon as I have it. Initial feedback is that the story and the science are “plausible” but that the media may well overstate the results obtainable from such a device, which is something we’ve heard often of course.
Tags: blindness, daily mail, retinitis pigmentosa, tongue, visual aids
