合成视觉有望让盲人复明

More than half a century ago, when he was just 18 years old, Georges* learned that he had retinitis pigmentosa. He was told that his vision would progressively deteriorate until he was blind. As predicted, when Georges reached his early fifties, his world went completely dark. Last year, at the push of a button, Georges suddenly saw light again. “When they got the electrodes going, it was a real fireworks show,” he exclaims.

50多年前，当乔治斯还是个18岁的小伙子时，不幸患上了色素性视网膜炎。他被告知视力将逐渐退化，直至全盲。不出所料，到了50多岁时，他的世界变得完全漆黑一片。但是去年，就在一个按钮被按下的瞬间，乔治斯突然重新见到了光明。他惊呼道：“当他们通上电以后，感觉真的就像烟花表演一样。”

Georges is part of a pilot program testing Iris, a product to restore vision to blind people, made by a young French company called Pixium Vision. The company’s founder, Bernard Gilly, is a scientist-turned-entrepreneur with a network of businesses focused on using technologies to improve human health, mostly around the nervous system.

这款神奇的产品名叫Iris系统，旨在帮助盲人恢复视力。它是由一家名叫Pixium Vision，成立没多久的法国企业开发的，乔治斯正是首批试验该设备的病人之一。该公司的创始人伯纳德o吉利原本是一位科学家，旗下拥有多家致力于利用科技（大多围绕神经系统）改善人体健康的企业。

“Ophthalmology seemed like a good way to approach the central nervous system because the eye, and especially the retina, is like a visible part of the brain,” Gilly says, noting that France counts 200,000 people in the country who are blind or nearly blind, and that generally there is no cure. “People are unaware of how prevalent the condition is because there are not many blind people in the streets. They are more prone to accidents, so they tend to stay home.”

吉利指出：“眼科是研究人体中枢视经系统的一个好途径，因为眼睛、特别是视网膜，就像是大脑的一个可见部分。”他指出，法国有约20万人处于全盲或接近全盲，而且基本上是没法治愈的。“很多人不了解这种情况有多普遍，这是因为我们在街上看不到很多盲人，因为他们在室外容易发生事故，所以他们倾向于待在家里。”

Technological advances such as microbiology and microelectronics are creating new opportunities to restore Sight, Gilly says, and scientists are making enormous strides in understanding the workings of the brain. It’s long been known that electricity can stimulate the nervous system, and a technique called “neuromodulation” is being used to address everything from Parkinson’s disease to chronic pain. Now, it can treat blindness, too.

吉利表示，微生物学与微电子学等领域的技术进步，为盲人复明带来了新的希望。另外科学家也付出了大量努力来理解大脑的工作机制。我们很久以前就知道电流可以刺激人的神经系统，另外，我们已经开始使用一种叫做“神经调节”的技术来治疗帕金森症和各种慢性疼痛。现在，这项技术也能治疗眼盲了。

The best candidates for Iris are patients with degenerative eye conditions. A surgeon implants a tiny silicon chip with 150 electrodes on the retina. Afterwards, the patient wears a pair of dark glasses with an integrated video camera that sends images to a portable mini-computer. This computer transforms the pictures into digital signals, which are sent back to the glasses, then transmitted wirelessly to a receiver on the implant. Pulses activate the electrodes, and the optic nerve carries the images to the brain.

最适合使用Iris的是那些患有退化性眼病的患者。医生向患者的视网膜内植入一块带有150个电极的微小芯片。手术后，患者需要戴上一副专用的墨镜，其中的集成摄像机可以向一台微型便携电脑传送图像。这台电脑随后把图像转换成数字信号，回传到墨镜上，然后再无线传输至植入芯片的接收器上。电子脉冲会激活电极，人的视神经便会将图像传送到大脑。

After surgery, patients follow a program of rehabilitation to teach their brains how to interpret these new images. What they see is basic shapes in variations of black, white, and gray. (The resolution is still too low for them to distinguish facial features or read.)

在接受手术后，患者需要参加一个康复项目，以教会他们的大脑如何解读这些新的图像。他们所见到的只是一些黑白灰色的基本形状。（这套解决方案目前尚不能让患者重新阅读或识别面部特征。）

“We don’t give them back their sight, but another way of seeing,” says Yannick Le Mer, the surgeon who implanted the system in three of Pixium’s test subjects. Le Mer says it is impossible to know beforehand how anyone will react, since it depends on each brain’s adaptability—like learning to play the piano or speak Japanese. Some catch on immediately, while others struggle.

亚尼克o拉o梅尔已经将这套系统植入三名测试者的眼球中。他表示：“我们没有让他们重获视力，但提供了另一种让他们看见的办法。”拉o梅尔表示，目前无法知道每名患者的反应如何，因为它取决于每个大脑的适应性——就像学钢琴或学日语一样，有的人学得很快，但也有人学得非常慢。

One recent autumn day, Georges, a small, soft-spoken man, traveled from his home in Brittany to the Quinze-Vingts hospital in eastern Paris. A young therapist named Alexandre Leseigneur was waiting for him, and the two spent the day together practicing using the system in the corridors. (The glasses were not yet available for practice at home.)

去年秋天，一位个头不高，说话轻声软语的男人从布列塔尼老家来到了巴黎东部的Quinze-Vingts眼科医院。他就是乔治斯。一位名叫亚历山大的医生正在等着他。他们在医院走廊里用了两天时间学习怎样使用这套系统。（目前这套系统还不能用于在家练习）。

Georges put the glasses on and hung a strap with the computer over his shoulder. The first time they went into the hallway, he moved hesitantly, shuffling sideways and reaching out his hand. “The flashes are too bright. I’m lost,” he said. Leseigneur plugged the glasses into a laptop computer, adjusted the settings, and they went out again. This time was better. Following a black band on the floor, Georges walked the length of a corridor and even managed to avoid an obstacle blocking his path.

乔治斯戴上了眼镜，用一根带子把电脑挎在了肩上。第一次，他们先去了走廊。乔治斯移动得很犹豫，脚步蹒跚地向前蹭着，伸手摸着。他说：“光线太亮了，我迷路了。”亚历山大将墨镜插到一台笔记本电脑上，调整了设置，然后他们又出去了。这一次好了一些。沿着地上的黑色图案，乔治亚走完了一个走廊的长度，甚至还绕过了路上的一个障碍物。

Gilly estimates that when the Iris arrives on the European market in late 2015, the cost to each patient will be around 100,000 euros, plus surgery. Though that might sound expensive, he says it’s a bargain compared to the price of blindness. A study at the University of Chicago forecasts that in the United States alone, costs related to eye disease and vision problems will reach $717 billion by 2050.

吉利预测称，等到Iris系统2015年末正式投放欧洲市场，每名患者的成本大概会在10万欧元左右，另外再加上手术费。虽然这笔费用听起来很贵，但吉利表示，和失明相比，花这笔钱还是很划算的。芝加哥大学的一项研究表明，光是在美国，到2050年，由眼病和视力问题导致的成本就将高达7170亿美元。

Last June, Pixium made an initial public offering, raising nearly 40 million euros (more than $53 million) from European investors. It is not the only company working in this field. Various permutations of what is commonly called a “bionic eye”—Gilly dislikes the term—are being developed from Germany to Australia. The pioneer is an American company, Second Sight Medical, which earned European approval for its Argus II system in 2011 and FDA approval in 2013. In November, Second Sight had its own successful IPO, raising some $32 million.

去年六月，Pixium公司进行了IPO，从欧洲投资人手中融资近4000万欧元（约合5300多万美元）。Pixium并不是唯一一家从事失明领域研究的企业。从德国到澳大利亚，许多企业都在开发俗称的“仿生眼”。其中一家名叫“第二视觉医疗公司”（Second Sight Medical）的美国企业走得最远，它的Argus II系统已经于2011年通过了欧洲认证，又于2013年通过了FDA(美国食物及药品管理局)认证。去年11月，第二视觉公司也成功进行了IPO，融资约3200万美元。

While the Iris is very similar to the Argus II, Gilly mentions a few key differences. His camera, for example, captures only the changes in the environment, so that the overall view is continuous, closer to the way the human eye actually sees. The implant can also be easily removed and replaced with upgrades as they become available.

虽然Iris与Argus II系统非常类似，但吉利也指出了一些不同之处。比如Iris的摄像头只捕捉环境的变化，所以它的总体视觉是持续不断的，更贴近真实人眼的视觉模式。另外，眼内的植入物也可以被轻易移除并更换升级版。

The company’s next generation product, Prima, will start clinical trials in 2016. With at least 10 times as many electrodes, it should enable people to read and to see facial features. “Patients tell us that what they want first is autonomy and safety,” says Gilly. “After that, they want to be able to recognize their loved ones, to see their spouses or their grandchildren.”

该公司的下一代产品Prima将于2016年开始临床测试。Prima的电极比Iris多了10倍，应该可以让失明者重新恢复阅读和识别面部特征的能力。吉利表示：“病人告诉我们，他们首先想要的是自主性和安全性。其次，他们希望能够认出他们所爱的人，看到他们的爱人或孙子。”

Since this is synthetic vision, the possibilities are vast. Soon the technology will permit users to see as clearly at night as during the day. A future device might be able to transmit the contents of an e-book or a movie directly to the retina. For now, Le Mer says, the goal is simply to help someone locate a door in a room. “It seems modest, but it’s huge.”

由于它是一种合成视觉，因此它拥有广阔的可能性。很快，这项技术就可以让用户“视黑夜如白昼”。未来的某款设备甚至有可能直接将一本电子书或电影的内容投射到人的视网膜上。不过拉o梅尔表示，他们目前的目标还只是帮助盲人找到一间屋子的门。“看起来似乎不是很宏大的目标，但意义非常重大。”

Georges agrees. He tells about how not long ago he was taking a walk near his home. “There was a truck parked across the sidewalk. My cane slipped under it, so I didn’t know it was there, and I smacked my head. If I had been using this system, I would have seen it.”

乔治斯也同意这一点。他告诉我们，前不久在他家附近散步时，“人行道对面停了一辆卡车，我的手杖探到车子下面去了，所以我不知道车子停在那儿，结果撞到了头。如果当时我已经用上了这个系统，我就会看到它了。”（财富中文网）