ABSTRACT
BACKGROUNDA long-held goal of vision therapy is to transfer information directly to the visual cortex of blind individuals, thereby restoring a rudimentary form of sight. However, no clinically available cortical visual prosthesis yet exists.METHODSWe implanted an intracortical microelectrode array consisting of 96 electrodes in the visual cortex of a 57-year-old person with complete blindness for a 6-month period. We measured thresholds and the characteristics of the visual percepts elicited by intracortical microstimulation.RESULTSImplantation and subsequent explantation of intracortical microelectrodes were carried out without complications. The mean stimulation threshold for single electrodes was 66.8 ± 36.5 µA. We consistently obtained high-quality recordings from visually deprived neurons and the stimulation parameters remained stable over time. Simultaneous stimulation via multiple electrodes was associated with a significant reduction in thresholds (P < 0.001, ANOVA) and evoked discriminable phosphene percepts, allowing the blind participant to identify some letters and recognize object boundaries.CONCLUSIONSOur results demonstrate the safety and efficacy of chronic intracortical microstimulation via a large number of electrodes in human visual cortex, showing its high potential for restoring functional vision in the blind.TRIAL REGISTRATIONClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02983370.FUNDINGThe Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia Innovación y Universidades, the Generalitat Valenciana (Spain), the Europan Union's Horizon 2020 programme, the Bidons Egara Research Chair of the University Miguel Hernández (Spain), and the John Moran Eye Center of the University of Utah.
Subject(s)
Blindness/surgery , Microelectrodes , Occipital Lobe/physiopathology , Optic Nerve Diseases/surgery , Visual Perception , Visual Prosthesis , Electric Stimulation/methods , Electrodes, Implanted , Female , Humans , Middle Aged , Occipital Lobe/surgery , Phosphenes , Retina/physiology , Treatment Outcome , Vision, Ocular , Visual Cortex/physiopathology , Visual Cortex/surgeryABSTRACT
We examine whether the Stokes parameters of a two-mode electromagnetic field results from the superposition of the spins of the photons it contains. To this end we express any n-photon state as the result of the action on the vacuum of n creation operators generating photons which can have may different polarization states in general. We find that the macroscopic polarization holds as sum of the single-photon Stokes parameters only for the SU(2) orbits of photon-number states. The states that lack this property are entangled in every basis of independent field modes, so this is a class of entanglement beyond the reach of SU(2) transformations.
