The recipient was able to perceive phosphenes from stimulation of 39/80 electrodes, with the nature of elicited percepts varying from discrete, clustered, diffuse and elongated points this website of light. While the system was ultimately of no practical use to the recipient, it demonstrated that stimulation of visual cortex with a fully-implanted,

multi-electrode implant was feasible and could produce visuotopically organized percepts. Moreover, it suggested that with an increased number of electrodes and phosphenes, providing the blind with useful visual perception via cortical stimulation may be possible. Brindley׳s success was followed by a significant increase in research effort towards the selleck chemicals development of a cortical visual prosthesis, with a number of other groups publishing the results of experiments directed at visual prosthesis development in subsequent years (Dobelle and Mladejovsky, 1974, Pollen, 1975 and Talalla et al., 1974). Both Brindley and Dobelle׳s groups separately progressed their implants, eventually demonstrating that phosphenes could be assembled into simple patterns for the purpose of reading Braille characters (Brindley and

Rushton, 1974 and Dobelle, 1974). The goals of visual prosthesis designers at the time were generally centered on providing the blind with the ability to read text or to improve their level of independent mobility. Brindley had previously determined that 50 favorably placed phosphenes would be required to permit the reading of idealized letterforms, however up to 600 would be required for the reading of handwriting (Brindley, 1965). Dobelle was less focused on reading and

more so on mobility (Dobelle et al., 1979a) and his group reported plans to implant 512 electrodes towards that goal (Dobelle et al., 1979a). Brindley made no further reports on his visual prosthesis development program after 1982 (Brindley, 1982), however Dobelle continued Niclosamide development, incorporating a camera and miniaturizing the system to the point of portability. With ongoing improvements in the sophistication of computing hardware, Dobelle׳s (2000) system was ultimately capable of providing limited object recognition and mobility to one of its recipients with only 21 phosphenes. Despite this, it was similar to Brindley׳s device, based on an array of surface electrodes that required currents up to several milliamperes to elicit phosphenes (Brindley and Lewin, 1968). Aside from limiting the minimum spacing between electrodes and therefore any resultant phosphenes, these large currents also increased the risk of seizures for implant recipients (Naumann, 2012), a problem that had previously plagued other researchers in the field (Pudenz, 1993). A further disadvantage was the bulk of the cabling that connected to the electrodes via a transcutaneous connector fixed to the skull.