Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25915832›Full record

ArticleNature medicine2015

Photovoltaic restoration of sight with high visual acuity.

Henri Lorach, Georges Goetz, Richard Smith, Xin Lei, Yossi Mandel, Theodore Kamins, Keith Mathieson, Philip Huie, James Harris, Alexander Sher and 1 more

Open access · greenAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Nature medicine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 184 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
184citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
13.6field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

184 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 362 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
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  13. Adaptation of visual responses in degeneratingFrontiers in neuroscience · 2026
    Article
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  17. Article
  18. Restoration of Sight with Electronic Retinal Prostheses.Annual review of vision science · 2025
    Review
  19. Article
  20. Article

124 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

11 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.

Henri Lorach1] Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. [2] Department of Ophthalmology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. [3] Inserm UMR_S968, Institut de la Vision, Paris, France.
Georges Goetz1] Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. [2] Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.ORCID 0000000159070554
Richard SmithSanta Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA.
Xin LeiDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Yossi MandelThe Mina &Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar Ilan University, Israel.
Theodore KaminsDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Keith MathiesonInstitute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK.ORCID 0000000295178076
Philip Huie1] Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. [2] Department of Ophthalmology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
James HarrisDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Alexander SherSanta Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA.
Daniel Palanker1] Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. [2] Department of Ophthalmology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Stanford University · USUniversity of California, Santa Cruz · USBar-Ilan University · ILInserm · FRUniversity of Strathclyde · GB

Funding

Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Education and Research (SCCTER)UL1UL1RR025744 · NCRR · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI GREENBERG, HARRY BERNARD · 2008 to 2011
$22.4M
High Resolution Photovoltaic Retinal ProsthesisR01EY018608 · NEI · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI PALANKER, DANIEL V · 2009 to 2016
$9.2M
NCRR NIH HHS UL1 RR025744NEI NIH HHS R01 EY018608NEI NIH HHS R01-EY-018608
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Patients with retinal degeneration lose sight due to the gradual demise of photoreceptors. Electrical stimulation of surviving retinal neurons provides an alternative route for the delivery of visual information. We demonstrate that subretinal implants with 70-μm-wide photovoltaic pixels provide highly localized stimulation of retinal neurons in rats. The electrical receptive fields recorded in retinal ganglion cells were similar in size to the natural visual receptive fields. Similarly to normal vision, the retinal response to prosthetic stimulation exhibited flicker fusion at high frequencies, adaptation to static images and nonlinear spatial summation. In rats with retinal degeneration, these photovoltaic arrays elicited retinal responses with a spatial resolution of 64 ± 11 μm, corresponding to half of the normal visual acuity in healthy rats. The ease of implantation of these wireless and modular arrays, combined with their high resolution, opens the door to the functional restoration of sight in patients blinded by retinal degeneration.

Indexed as

AngiographyAnimalsElectric StimulationElectrophysiological PhenomenaFemaleFluoresceinLasersMaleNeuronsPhotochemistryProstheses and ImplantsRatsRetinaRetinal DegenerationRetinal Ganglion CellsRetinal NeuronsFluorescein

Identifiers

PMID25915832
PMCPMC4601644
OpenAlexW2127137933

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.