A team of Stanford researchers has developed a new generation of higher-resolution retinal implants* with approximately 1,000 electrodes (compared to 60 electrodes commonly found in fully implantable systems) to make artificial vision more natural.

* Retinal implants are arrays of electrodes, placed at the back of the eye, which partially restore vision to people with diseases that cause their light-sensing photoreceptors to die. Typically, a camera embedded in glasses collects visual information and sends it to a computer that converts the images to electrical signals, which are then transmitted to the implant and interpreted by the brain.