Article
Multichannel Neurotransmitter based Prosthesis
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Published: | November 30, 2009 |
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Most retinal prostheses in development today employ the use of electrical stimulation to modulate neuronal activity within the retina and create electrophosphenes. Fabrication of retinal prothesis electrodes and electrical stimulation chips has been made possible through decades of advances microelectronics fabrication technology. The primary mode of interneuronal communication within the retina is via neurotransmitter-ligand receptor interactions, however. These systems evolved to provide the visual system with information pathways. Retinal prostheses that employ the spatially and temporally controlled release of neurotransmitters may be able to uniquely communicate along these specialized visual sub-systems.
Our group has successfully characterized the neurotransmitter stimulation parameters required to modulate retinal ganglion cell activity in wholemount retinae of normal and retinitis pigmentosa phenotypes. Combined with computational models and methods for microfluidic manufacturing, the design and fabrication of multichannel neurotransmitter-based retinal prostheses is possible.
The purpose of this talk is to present our results with in-vitro neurotransmitter-based retinal stimulation and how these relate to the predicted models for retinal stimulation in normal and retinitis pigmentosa retinae in the context of designing a neurotransmitter-based retinal prosthesis.