Given the rising number of patients with blindness from macular, optic nerve, and visual pathway disease, there is considerable interest in the potential of electrical stimulation devices to restore vision. Electrical devices for restoration of visual function can be grouped into three categories: (1) visual prostheses whose goal is to bypass damaged areas and directly activate downstream intact portions of the visual pathway; (2) electric field stimulation whose goal is to activate endogenous transcriptional and molecular signaling pathways to promote neuroprotection and neuro-regeneration; and (3) neuromodulation whose stimulation would resuscitate neural circuits vital to coordinating responses to visual input. In this review, we discuss these three approaches, describe advances made in the different fields, and comment on limitations and potential future directions.

鉴于因黄斑、视神经和视觉通路疾病导致失明的患者数量不断增加，人们对电刺激设备恢复视力的潜力非常感兴趣。用于恢复视觉功能的电气设备可分为三类：（1）视觉假体，其目标是绕过受损区域并直接激活视觉通路下游的完整部分； （2）电场刺激，其目的是激活内源性转录和分子信号通路，以促进神经保护和神经再生； （3）神经调节，其刺激将恢复对协调视觉输入反应至关重要的神经回路。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了这三种方法，描述了不同领域取得的进展，并对局限性和潜在的未来方向进行了评论。