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mjbat7 t1_j1thvo8 wrote

Reply to comment by athomasflynn in In Sci-Fi the concept of eye-transplants is common enough - what would it take to actually be able to do it? by Daniel_Jacksson

Bionic eyes are currently in development by the bionic ear team and they aren't that far away, although it'll probs start with simple shapes with poor resolution. But it's a simpler problem because you can interrogate the patient's optic nerve and augment stimuli to inform the way your device communicates.

On the other hand, transplants are much more challenging - the visual pathway from cone/rod passes through complex, multi-synapse neuronal processing. Neurons tend to degrade quickly and they aren't very good at repair. Then there's the rejection question. So you don't have a good way to figure out if you're connecting the right donor/patient neurons, and even if you did, they'd rapidly degrade.

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athomasflynn t1_j1ur002 wrote

I understand what you're saying but I was talking about something close to or better than human vision. I'd argue that bionic eyes are further along because they're sending a simplified signal. As they ramp up they're going to run into the mapping issues. There's a ton of different procedures and repairs to incentivize improvements in neuron grafting, organ rejection and neurogenesis where the bionic eye challenges seems like it will pull in less R&D money. I might be wrong though, brain implants are getting popular in the startup funding cycle so that might drive crossover breakthroughs.

I'm personally rooting for bionic eyes. I'd like to be able to see like a mantis shrimp in my 70s.

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