[Implantation of the artificial retina]

In some degenerative retinal diseases, e.g., retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, the photoreceptors are destroyed to cause serious visual defects. Recent studies on blind human subjects revealed that a large number of ganglion cells remains intact and is capable of transmitting signals to the brain to evoke partial visual perception. This provided hope to compensate for the visual defects with retinal prostheses. The recent progress of microfabrication technique made it possible to implement the Vary Large Scale Integrated circuit, the artificial retina, which emulates a part of retinal function. The idea of implanting the artificial retina to the patients was proposed recently and experiments using animals have been put into practice. This article surveys the front line of the artificial retina implantation.