Probing and predicting ganglion cell responses to smooth electrical stimulation in healthy and blind mouse retina

Abstract

Retinal implants are used to replace lost photoreceptors in blind patients suffering from retinopathies such as retinitis pigmentosa. Patients wearing implants regain some rudimentary visual function. However, it is severely limited compared to normal vision because non-physiological stimulation strategies fail to selectively activate different retinal pathways at sufficient spatial and temporal resolution. The development of improved stimulation strategies is rendered difficult by the large space of potential stimuli. Here we systematically explore a subspace of potential stimuli by electrically stimulating healthy and blind mouse retina in epiretinal configuration using smooth Gaussian white noise delivered by a high-density CMOS-based microelectrode array. We identify linear filters of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) by fitting a linear-nonlinear-Poisson (LNP) model. Our stimulus evokes spatially and temporally confined spiking responses in RGC which are accurately predicted by the LNP model. Furthermore, we find diverse shapes of linear filters in the linear stage of the model, suggesting diverse preferred electrical stimuli of RGCs. The linear filter base identified by our approach could provide a starting point of a model-guided search for improved stimuli for retinal prosthetics.

Colloidal self-assembly of soft neural interfaces from injectable photovoltaic microdevices

“…[15][16][17] We showed that the voltage transduced by PVMs could reach the levels that would effectively activate retinal neural layers. 6,[42][43][44] The methodology is tunable in terms of layer thicknesses, and compatible with smaller pixels (down to a few micrometers). Based on the literature, 6,31 we postulate that Ti layer serves as a capacitive charge injection material.…”

Toward Closed-Loop Electrical Stimulation of Neuronal Systems: A Review

“…However, it cannot be known a priori if such an EES waveform was the optimum for a given control task. Therefore, Höfling et al 215 proposed smooth white noise EES to more closely approximate the physiological signals in the retina. Desai et al 216 experimented with different square pulse EES strategies and sinusoidal EES for seizure control in rats; sinusoidal EES was not useful, whereas the effects of theta pulse EES depended on the stimulation timing strategy.…”

A flexible protruding microelectrode array for neural interfacing in bioelectronic medicine

“…Retinal preparation was performed using adult B6.CXB1-Pde6brd10/J ( rd10 ) mice of either sex as described previously 58 – 61 . The age of the rd10 mice varied between 400–430 days postnatal.…”