A visual prosthesis with 100 electrodes featuring wireless signals and wireless power transmission

Abstract

A visual prosthesis is an artificial sensory organ that transmits visual information to a blind person by electrically stimulating residual neurons in the visual nervous system. Such a system requires a large number of stimulating electrodes: It is technically difficult to connect a stimulator placed behind the ear to each of the stimulating electrodes over any significant distance with high reliability. We propose a visual prosthesis containing a multiplexer that is separately placed from the stimulator unit. The array of stimulating electrodes is connected to the stimulation unit through a multiplexer. The stimulating electrodes and multiplexer are placed onto the suprachoroidal space. The stimulation unit consists of a metal case and a coil and is implanted in the postauricular region of the cranium. The multiplexer and the stimulator unit are connected by a cable composed of six wires. Incorporating the multiplexer enables us to control of a large number of electrodes using a small number of conductors in the cable. We have developed a system with 100 electrodes which is powered and controlled wirelessly. Then we have confirmed that the proposed system functions successfully both in vitro and in vivo.

Semantic and structural image segmentation for prosthetic vision

“…As a result, implanted patients are able to see patterns of spots of light called phosphenes that the brain interprets as a visual information [7][8][9]. Current retinal prosthetic devices are limited to hundreds of electrical receptors, which produce a very limited visual elicitation [10][11][12]. From the actual technologies for retinal implants [13], one of the most active line of research is based on implants with a micro camera that captures external stimuli and a processor that converts the visual information in microstimulations in the implant, as can be seen in Fig 1. Following the computer image paradigm, we can say that the visual information evoked by the implants has very low spatial resolution and very limited dynamic range (only few levels of stimulus intensity are perceived as different) [14][15][16].…”

Wireless Power Transfer for Autonomous Wearable Neurotransmitter Sensors

“…WPT has been extensively studied for implantable devices such as pacemakers, cardiac implants [ 34 , 35 ], cochlear implants [ 36 ], esophageal pH monitoring for gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) diagnosis [ 37 ], gastrostimulators [ 38 ], visual prosthesis [ 39 ], and neuromuscular stimulators [ 40 ]. In these studies, WPT systems were based on inductive coupling to transfer energy safely and efficiently between two resonant antennas.…”

Inductive Coupling

“…They have made it possible to treat a wide range of ailments and disabilities from bradycardia (Allan, 2003) and chronic back pain to epilepsy (Morrel, 2011;Fisher, 2011) and deafness (Zeng et al, 2008;Rauschecker et al, 2002). IMDs have the potential to alleviate more challenging types of disabilities such as blindness (Weiland and Humayun, 2008;Chen et al, 2010;Shire et al, 2009;Terasawa et al, 2008), paralysis (Nicolelis, 2003;Schwartz et al, 2006), and loss of limbs (Kuiken et al, 2007). These devices need to transmit and receive information wirelessly across the skin barrier since breaching the skin with interconnect wires would be a source of morbidity for the patient and significantly increases the risk of infection.…”