Altruism and the volunteer: psychological benefits from participating as a research subject.

Psychiatric assessment of potential volunteers for hazardous biomedical experimentation should include an assessment of the motivations underlying the altruistic action of volunteering. Screening goals include evaluation of informed consent as well as screening out experimental subjects who would be likely to be psychologically harmed by participation. This discussion of psychological issues to be considered, beyond those of informed consent and screening for severe psychopathology, originated in the psychiatric screening of the small group of original volunteers for the "Dobelle eye" Artificial Vision Project.

Artificial vision for the blind by connecting a television camera to the visual cortex.

Blindness is more feared by the public than any ailment with the exception of cancer and AIDS. We report the development of the first visual prosthesis providing useful "artificial vision" to a blind volunteer by connecting a digital video camera, computer, and associated electronics to the visual cortex of his brain. This device has been the objective of a development effort begun by our group in 1968 and represents realization of the prediction of an artificial vision system made by Benjamin Franklin in his report on the "kite and key" experiment, with which he discovered electricity in 1751.

Use of breathing pacemakers to suppress intractable hiccups of up to thirteen years duration.

To suppress intractable neurologic hiccups that were unresponsive to pharmacologic management, seven patients have been implanted with modern breathing pacemakers of our design and manufacture. These devices control excursions of the diaphragm by electrical stimulation of the phrenic nerve. The first five patients have been able to control their hiccups by electrical stimulation after periods of up to 13 years.