Lance M Optican

US Patent:

50373765, Aug 6, 1991

Filed:

Jul 22, 1988

Appl. No.:

7/222882

Inventors:

Barry J. Richmond - Bethesda MD
Lance M. Optican - Potomac MD

Assignee:

The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health
and Human Services - Washington DC

International Classification:

A61M 2100

US Classification:

600 26

Abstract:

An apparatus and method for transmitting prosthetic information to the brain contains an array of sensory elements that receive energy from an external stimulus and process those signals via neural filters and neural waveforms to produce a pulse or `spike` train that is temporally encoded with information that is functionally related to the external stimulus. The simulated spike trains, when applied to an appropriate area of the brain, produce perceptions that are functionally related to the sensed external stimuli so that a subject can discriminate between different spike trains representative of different external stimuli.