2010 年 29 巻 1 号 p. 36-40
The artificial vision makes the machine substitute a part of the visual system, and enables to see again. In Japan, about 188,000 blind people exist. The main four causative diseases are diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and inherited retinal dystrophy. Because age-related macular degeneration and inherited retinal dystrophy damage the photoreceptor cell and the retinal pigment epithelium chiefly, if we can offer some information to the retinal ganglion cell, it will be able to bring the input as somewhat sight to the brain. On the other hand, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma cause the degeneration of the retinal ganglion cell. Therefore, rebuilding the vision of diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma is impossible with electrical retinal stimulation. We guess that the ideal artificial vision system is a type which gets the image by the intraoccular camera and which stimulates occipital lobe by light. It will have high resolution and will be able to be applied to most diseases in the near future.