Argus Ⅱ retinal prosthesis system: an update

Argus Ⅱ retinal prosthesis system (Argus Ⅱ; Second Sight Medical products, Sylmar, CA) is the first prosthetic retinal device approved for humanitarian use by both FDA in America and CE in Europe.It is a potential treatment for patients with end-stage outer retinal diseases.The system contains several parts, the camera first captures image and transfers it into electrical stimulating parameters conveying spatial-temporal information.The microelectrode epiretinal array then stimulate underlying bipolar cells and retinal ganglion cells.Patients present significant increases on levels of discrimination, target localization, motion detection and navigation.Possible adverse events include conjunctival erosion, hypotony and culture-negative presumed endophthalmitis.Future developments of the Argus Ⅱ system will not only comprise upgrading of image processing software and hardware, but also further disclosing retinal and visual signal processing mechanism.