Naturalistic spatiotemporal modulation of epiretinal stimulation increases the response persistence of retinal ganglion cell.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_72C06FF6789F
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Title
Naturalistic spatiotemporal modulation of epiretinal stimulation increases the response persistence of retinal ganglion cell.
Journal
Journal of neural engineering
Author(s)
Chenais NAL, Airaghi Leccardi MJI, Ghezzi D.
ISSN
1741-2552 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
1741-2552
Publication state
Published
Issued date
22/02/2021
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
18
Number
1
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Publication Status: epublish
Abstract
Objective.Retinal stimulation in blind patients evokes the sensation of discrete points of light called phosphenes, which allows them to perform visually guided tasks, such as orientation, navigation, object recognition, object manipulation and reading. However, the clinical benefit of artificial vision in profoundly blind patients is still tenuous, as several engineering and biophysical obstacles keep it far away from natural perception. The relative preservation of the inner retinal neurons in hereditary degenerative retinal diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa, supports artificial vision through the network-mediated stimulation of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). However, the response of RGCs to repeated electrical stimulation rapidly declines, primarily because of the intrinsic desensitisation of their excitatory network. In patients, upon repetitive stimulation, phosphenes fade out in less than half of a second, which drastically limits the understanding of the percept.Approach.A more naturalistic stimulation strategy, based on spatiotemporal modulation of electric pulses, could overcome the desensitisation of RGCs. To investigate this hypothesis, we performed network-mediated epiretinal stimulations paired to electrophysiological recordings in retinas explanted from both male and female retinal degeneration 10 mice.Main results.The results showed that the spatial and temporal modulation of the network-mediated epiretinal stimulation prolonged the persistence of the RGC's response from 400 ms up to 4.2 s.Significance.A time-varied, non-stationary and interrupted stimulation of the retinal network, mimicking involuntary microsaccades, might reduce the fading of the visual percept and improve the clinical efficacy of retinal implants.
Keywords
Animals, Electric Stimulation, Female, Humans, Male, Mice, Phosphenes, Retina, Retinal Ganglion Cells/physiology, Retinitis Pigmentosa, Visual Prosthesis, desensitisation, epiretinal stimulation, network-mediated stimulation, retinal prosthesis, spatio-temporal modulation
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
21/03/2024 12:01
Last modification date
22/03/2024 8:25
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