Abstract
Perhaps the most personal piece of technology in all of Star Trek is Geordi’s VISOR. This piece of biomedical engineering aids one person with one particular function. The personal nature of the VISOR makes it different than shields or tricorders or other devices that are used or benefit everyone. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Geordi’s VISOR is perhaps the most mature piece of Star Trek technology that we have in the real world. Retinal implants and brain implants are currently available to restore at least some vision to people with degenerative diseases of the retina. Even more amazing, science is discovering the language of the visual system (retinal code), so new implants can not only recreate true visual neural signals, but will also be able to see in the infrared, microwave, UV, and [X-ray]s regions of the EM spectrum.
Our eyes reflect our lives, don’t they?
And yours, so confident!
—Shinzon
Star Trek: Nemesis
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
MJ Banissy and J Ward. Mirror-touch synesthesia is linked with empathy. Nature Neuroscience 10(7); 815-6, 2007. doi:10.1038/nn1926. http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v10/n7/full/nn1926.html
MP Barry and G Dagnelie. Use of the Argus II retinal prosthesis to improve visual guidance of fine hand movements. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 53(9); 5095–5101, 2012. doi:10.1167/iovs.12-9536. http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2165826
MR Behrend, AK Ahuja, MS Humayun, RH Chow, and JD Weiland. Resolution of the epiretinal prosthesis is not limited by electrode size. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng 19(4); 436–442, 2011. Doi:10.1109/TNSRE.2011.2140132. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=5752253
AA Cho, JB Clark, and AH Rupert. Visually triggered migraine headaches affect spatial orientations and balance in a helicopter pilot. Aviat Space Environ Med 66(4); 353-358, 1995.
L da Cruz, BF Coley, J Dorn, F Merlini, E Filley, P Christopher FK Chen, V Wuyyuru, J Sahel, P Stanga, M Humayun, RJ Greenberg, G Dagnelle, for the Argus Study Group. The Argus II epiretinal prosthesis system allows letter and word reading and long-term function in patients with profound vision loss. Br J Ophthalmol 97(5); 632–636, 2013. doi:10.1136/bjophthalmol-2012-301525. http://bjo.bmj.com/content/97/5/632.long
JD Dorn, AK Ahuja, A Caspi, L d Cruz, G Dagnelle, J Sahel, RJ Greenberg MJ McMahon, for the Argus II Study Group. The Detection of Motion by Blind Subjects With the Epiretinal 60-Electrode (Argus II) Retinal Prosthesis. JAMA Ophthalmol 131(2); 183–189, 2013. doi:10.1001/2013.jamaophthalmol.221. http://archopht.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1375731
M Famulare and A Fairhall. Feature selection in simple neurons: How coding depends on the spiking dynamics. Neural Comput 22(3); 581-598, 2010. doi:10.1162/neco.2009.02-09-956. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/neco.2009.02-09-956#.VpGnssArLfQ
N G, A Tan, Y Farhatnia, J Rajadas, MR Hamblin, PT Khaw, and AM Seifalian. Channelrhodopsins: visual regeneration and neural activation by a light switch. New Biotechnology 30(5); 461-474, 2013. doi:10.1016/j.nbt.2013.04.007. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871678413000599
AI Goller, K Richards, S Novak, and J Ward. Mirror-touch synaesthesia in the phantom limbs of amputees. Cortex 49(1); 243-51, 2013. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2011.05.002. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945211001468
ZM Hafed, K Stingl, K-U Bartz-Schmidt, F Gekeler, and E Zrenner. Oculomotor behavior of blind patients seeing with a subretinal visual implant. Vision Research 118; 119-131, 2016. doi:10.1016/j.visionres.2015.04.006. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698915001510
DE Harle, AJ Shepherd and BJW Evans. Visual stimuli are common triggers of migraine and are associated with pattern glare. Headache 46(9); 1431-1440, 2006. doi:10.1111/j.1526-4610.2006.00585.x. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/j.1526-4610.2006.00585.x/
MS Humayun, JD Dorn, L da Cruz L, G Dagnelle, J Sahel, PE Stagna, AV Cideciyan, JL Duncan, D Eliott, E Filley, AC Ho, A Santos, AB Safran, A Arditi, LV del Priore, RJ Greenberg, the Argus Study Group. Interim results from the international trial of Second Sight’s visual prosthesis. Ophthalmology 119(4); 779–788, 2012. doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2011.09.028. http://www.aaojournal.org/article/S0161-6420(11)00884-0/abstract
MS Humayun, JD Weiland, GY Fujii 2003, R Greenberg, R Williamson, J Little, B Mech, V Cimmarusti, G van Boemel, G Dagnelle, and E de Juan. Visual perception in a blind subject with a chronic microelectronic retinal prosthesis. Vision Res 43(24); 2573–2581, 2003. doi:10.1016/S0042-6989(03)00457-7. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698903004577
S Ings. A Natural History of Seeing: The Art and Science of Vision. New York: WW Norton, 2008.
L Johannesson, and S Jarvholm. Uterus transplantation: current progress and future prospects. International Journal of Womens Health 8: 43-51, 2016. doi:10.2147/IJWH.S75635. https://www.dovepress.com/uterus-transplantation-current-progress-and-future-prospects-peer-reviewed-article-IJWH
RK Kalkman, JJ Briaire, and JH Frijins. Current focusing in cochlear implants: an analysis of neural recruitment in a computational model. Hearing Research 322; 89-98, 2015. doi:10.1016/j.hearres.2014.12.004. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595514002032
A Kotecha, J Zhong, D Stewart, and L da Cruz. The Argus II prosthesis facilitates reaching and grasping tasks: a case series. BMC Opthalmol 14; 71, 2014. 10.1186/1471-2415-14-71. http://bmcophthalmol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2415-14-71
TZ Lauritzen, J Harris, S Mohand-Said, JA Sahel, JD Dorn, K McClure, and RJ Greenberg. Reading visual braille with a retinal prosthesis. Front Neurosci 6; 168, 2012. doi:10.3389/fnins.2012.00168. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnins.2012.00168/abstract
J Lechner, M Chen, RE Hogg, L Toth, G Silvestri, U Chakravarthy, and H Xu. Higher plasma levels of complement C3a, C4a, and C5a increase the risk of subretinal fibrosis in neovascularization age-related macular degeneration: Complement active in AMD. Immun Ageing 13; 4, 2016. doi:10.1186/s12979-016-0060-5. http://immunityageing.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12979-016-0060-5
M Li, Y Yan, Q Wang, H Zhao, X Chai, X Sui, Q Ren, and L Li. A simulation of current focusing and steering with penetrating optic nerve electrodes. Journal of Nueral Engineering 10(6); 06607, 2013. doi:10.1088/1741-2560/10/6/066007. http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-2560/10/6/066007
HM Mohammadi, E Ghafar-Zedah, and M Sawan. An image processing approach for blind mobility facilitated through visual intracortical stimulation. Artificial Organs 36(7); 616-628, 2012. 10.111/j.1525-1594.2011.01421.x. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1525-1594.2011.01421.x/abstract
Z Nichols, and S Nirenberg. Correlations in complete retinal populations play a very small role in coding natural scene stimuli. Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San Diego. Prog. No. 891.3, 2010.
S Nirenberg, I Bomash, JW Pillow, and JD Victor. Heterogeneous response dynamics in retinal ganglion cells: The interplay of predictive coding and adaptation. J Neurophysiol 103 (6); 3184-3194, 2010. doi:10.1152/jn.00878.2009. http://jn.physiology.org/content/103/6/3184.long
S Nirenberg and C Pandarinath. Retinal prosthetic strategy with the capacity to restore normal vision. Proc Natl Acad Sci, USA 109(37); 15012-15107, 2012. doi:10.1073/pnas.1207035109. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/37/15012
M Nita, and A Grzybowski. The role of reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress in the pathomechanism of the age-related ocular diseases and other pathologies of the anterior and posterior eye segments in adults. Oxid Med Cell Longev 2016; 3164734, 2016. doi:10.1155/2016/3164734. http://www.hindawi.com/journals/omcl/2016/3164734/
L Paninski, J Pillow, and J Lewi. Statistical models for neural encoding, decoding, and optimal stimulus design. Prog Brain Res 165; 493-507, 2007. doi:10.1016/S0079-6123(06)65031-0. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079612306650310
JW Pillow, J Shlens, L Paninski, A Sher, AM Litke, EJ Chichilinisky, and EP Simoncelli. Spatio-temporal correlations and visual signaling in a complete neuronal population. Nature 454; 995-999, 2008. doi:10.1038/nature07140. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7207/full/nature07140.html
N Prikh, L Itti, M Humayun, and J Weiland. Performance of visually guided tasks using simulated prosthetic vision and saliency-based cues. J Neural Engineering 10(2):026017, 2013. doi:10.1088/1741-2560/10/2/026017. http://iopscience.iop.org/1741-2552/10/2/026017/
EP Simoncelli, L Paninski, J Pillow, and O Schwartz. Characterization of neural responses with stochastic stimuli. The Cognitive Neurosciences, ed. Gazzaniga, M (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA), pp327-338, 2004.
AJ Shepherd, TJ Hine, and HM Beaumont. Color and spatial frequency are related to visual pattern sensitivity in migraine. Headache. 53(7); 1087-1103, 2013. doi:10.1111/head.12062. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/head.12062/abstract
K Stingl, KU Bartz-Schmidt, D Besch, A Braun, A Bruckmann, F Gekeler, U Greppmaier, S Hipp, G Hortdorfer, C Kernstock, A Koitschev, A Kusnyerik, H Sachs, A Schatz, KT Stingl, T Peters, B Wilhelm, and E Zrenner. Artificial vision with wirelessly powered subretinal electronic implant alpha-IMS. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 280(1757); 20130077, 2013a. doi:10.1098/rspb.2013.0077. http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1757/20130077
K Stingl, KU Bartz-Schmidt, F Gekeler, A Kusnyerik, H Sachs, and E Zrenner. Functional outcome in subretinal electronic implants depends on foveal eccentricity. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science 54(12); 7658–7665, 2013b. doi:10.1167/iovs.13-12835. http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2127911
K Stingl, KU Bartz-Schmidt, D Besch, CK Chee, CL Cottriall, F Gekeler, M Groppe, TL Jackson, RE McLaren, A Koitschev, A Kusnyerik, J Neffendorf, J Nemeth, MAN Naeem, T Peters, JD Ramsden, H Sachs, A Simpson, MS Singh, B Wilhelm, D Wong, and E Zrenner. Subretinal visual implant Alpha IMS – clinical trial interim report. Vision Research 111(Part B); 149-160, 2015. 10.1016/j.visres.2015.03.001. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698915000784
JD Victor. The dynamics of the cat retinal X cell centre. J Physiol 386(1); 219-246, 1987. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1987.sp016531. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/jphysiol.1987.sp016531/abstract
J Wang, X Wu, Y Lu, H Wu, H Kan, and X Chai. Face recognition in simulated prosthetic vision: face detection-based image processing strategies. J Neural Eng 11(4); 046009, 2014. doi:10.1088/1741-2560/11/4/046009. http://iopscience.iop.org/1741-2552/11/4/046009/
J Ward, and MJ Banissy. Explaining mirror-touch synesthesia. Cogn Neurosci 6(2-3); 118-133, 2015. 10.1080/17588928.2015.1042444. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17588928.2015.1042444
R Wilke, VP Gabel, H Sachs, KU Bartz-Schmidt, F Gekeler, D Besch, P Szurman, A Stett, B Wilhelm, T Peters, A Harscher, U Greppmaier, S Kibbel, H Benav, A Bruckmann, K Stingl, A Kusnyerik, and E Zrenner. Spatial resolution and perception of patterns mediated by a subretinal 16-electrode array in patients blinded by hereditary retinal dystrophies. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 52(8);5995–6003, 2011. doi:10.1167/iovs.10-6946. http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2188619
N Xu, F Wei, X Liu, L Jiang, H Cai, Z Li, M Yu, F Mu, and Z Liu. Reconstruction of the upper cervical spine using a personalized 3D-printed vertebral body in an adolescent with Ewing sarcoma. Spine (Phila Pa 1976) 41(1); E50-E54, 2016. doi:10.1097/BRS.0000000000001179. http://journals.lww.com/spinejournal/Abstract/2016/01000/Reconstruction_of_the_Upper_Cervical_Spine_Using_a.21.aspx
L Zhaoping and KA May. Psychophysical tests of the hypothesis of a bottom-saliency map in primary visual cortex. PLoS Computational Biology 3(4); e62, 2007. doi:10.1371/journalpcbi.0030062. http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030062
E Zrenner, KU Bartz Schmidt, H Benav, D Besch, A Bruckmann, VP Gabel, F Gekeler, U Greppmaier, A Harscher, S Kibbel, J Koch, A Kusnyerik, T Peters, K Stingl, H Sachs, A Stett, P Szurman, B Wilhelm, and R Wilke. Subretinal electronic chips allow blind patients to read letters and combine them to words. Proc R Soc B 278:1489–1497, 2011. 10.1098/rpsb.2010.1747. http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/278/1711/1489.long
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lasbury, M.E. (2017). Geordi’s Visor: A Vision of the Future. In: The Realization of Star Trek Technologies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40914-6_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40914-6_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40912-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40914-6
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)