This is an amazing breakthrough by the research community! They pioneered a new kind of retinal stimulation called “Oz,” which allows users to see a color they’ve never before seen. This new approach draws its inspiration from the green-tinted glasses in the original “Wizard of Oz” book series. It is intended to introduce the brain to unfamiliar visual information and patterns of retinal activation. Researchers managed to implement the technique on five participants successfully. This gave them a chance to test-drive a new color, “olo,” which is defined as “a blue-green of unprecedented saturation.”
Oz works as it should simply by stimulating M cones—retinal photoreceptors that are most sensitive to green light. And although M cones are tuned to be most sensitive at green wavelengths, in fact they have the ability to respond to an even broader array of colors. This intentional method delivers participants head first into a brand-new depth of color perception. They are introduced to color saturation and loudness that conventional visual techniques sometimes cannot show.
Understanding the Oz Technique
The Oz method relies on state-of-the-art technology called adaptive optics optical coherence tomography (AO-OCT). This technique requires the use of bright light to stimulate retinal cells and measure their morphological changes in response. Using AO-OCT, researchers can map the individual pattern of L, M, and S cones in each subject’s retina.
So far, Oz is only able to excite a fraction of the retina’s 106,000 cones. To drive in their environment, users need to constantly have their gaze trained on the far-end condition. So far, scientists have only mapped this small stretch.
James Fong, a lead researcher on the Commission’s original work, explained the difficulty of broadening the technique’s use.
“It will be a significant challenge in practice,” – James Fong
Fong emphasized that while the current implementation is promising, applying Oz more broadly, particularly on the fovea—the part of the retina responsible for sharp central vision—poses significant difficulties.
The Experience of Seeing “Olo”
Study participants who received stimulation with Oz consistently remarked on seeing the entirely new color “olo.” Your answer, Indian green. This color is defined as an extraordinary blue-green quality, in great purity, inspired by nature, beyond any of the before is color.
This finding has the potential to impact the lives of millions of people with color vision deficiencies. Through this technique, they can tap into a much broader palette. As promising as this breakthrough is, it’s important to acknowledge that like every scientific advance, it has yet to realize its full potential, Fong cautioned.
“It may be possible that this [color-blind] person would learn to see the new dimension of color.”
Long-term, the researchers envision being able to deliver programmable control to all of the photoreceptors in the retina.
This expansive, longterm vision would enable for the first time astounding and provocative sculptural manipulation of visual experience.
“The ultimate goal is to provide programmable control over every photoreceptor [light-sensing cell] in the retina,” – James Fong
Fong outlined the hurdles that lie ahead:
Future Potential and Limitations
The needed underlying technology has incredible promise. It requires specialized lasers and optics that likely won’t find their way into consumer electronics such as smartphones or televisions any time soon.
“Although this has not been achieved to that level, the method we present in the current study demonstrates that a lot of the key principles are possible in practice.”
Researchers are still hard at work tinkering with and improving the Oz technique. If successful, this foundational work will pave the way for more widespread applications of visual technology across the spectrum. As such, it might set the stage for better understanding of visual function with more widespread, unprecedented scale and precision.
As researchers continue to refine and develop the Oz technique, the possibility remains that it could one day enable broader applications in visual technology. It may also pave the way for enhanced understanding of visual function at unprecedented scales and precision.
