Abstract
This paper presents a novel sensing configuration for retinal physiology analysis, using two microelectrode arrays (MEAs). In order to investigate an optimized stimulation protocol for a sub-retinal prosthesis, retinal photoreceptor cells are stimulated, and the response of retinal ganglion cells is recorded in an in vitro environment. For photoreceptor cell stimulation, a polyimide-substrate MEA is developed, using the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. For ganglion cell response recording, a conventional glass-substrate MEA is utilized. This new sensing configuration is used to record the response of retinal ganglion cells with respect to three different stimulation methods (monopolar, bipolar, and dual-monopolar stimulation methods). Results show that the geometrical relation between the stimulation microelectrode locations and the response locations seems very low. The threshold charges of the bipolar stimulation and the monopolar stimulation are in the range of 10∼20 nC. The threshold charge of the dual-monopolar stimulation is not obvious. These results provide useful guidelines for developing a sub-retinal prosthesis.
Highlights
Retinal degeneration is a prevalent disease that can lead to total blindness in people; it refers to a group of diseases with similar symptoms, including age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) and retinitis pigmentosa (RP) [1]
The retinal patches are placed in artificial cerebrospinal fluid (ACSF) bubbled with 95% O2 and 5% CO2 at 32 °C
We performed seven experiments, using three retinal patches isolated from one rabbit
Summary
Retinal degeneration is a prevalent disease that can lead to total blindness in people; it refers to a group of diseases with similar symptoms, including age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) and retinitis pigmentosa (RP) [1]. Pharmaceutical treatments to restore vision have not yet been discovered, but there are at present a number of treatments to attempt to slow down the progression of certain forms of retinal degeneration [4]. Despite the degeneration of the outer nuclear layer in these cases of retinal degeneration blindness, there are reports that the inner retinal cells (78.4%) and retinal ganglion cells (29.7%) partially survive [5,6,7]. Many groups have researched retinal prostheses, which stimulate the surviving cells for vision restoration [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. The principal reason is the complexity of visual perception pathway, from the retina through the optic nerve to the visual cortex
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