Opie Nicholas L, Burkitt Anthony N, Meffin Hamish, Grayden David B
Department of Electrical Engineering. The University of Melbourne, Australia.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2010;2010:1597-600. doi: 10.1109/IEMBS.2010.5626670.
In order to develop retinal implants with a large number of electrodes, it is necessary to ensure that they do not cause damage to the neural tissue by the heat that the electrical circuits generate. Knowledge about the threshold of the amount of power that induces thermal damage will greatly assist in development of power budgets for implants, which has a significant effect upon the design of implant circuitry. In this study, we developed and tested in-vitro equipment that can dissipate thermal energy in current prosthesis implantation sites while simultaneously measuring and recording temperature distributions at multiple locations along the retinal tissue. A finite element thermal model of the feline eye was also created and validated by the in-vitro tests allowing for a much larger spectrum of thermal influences to be evaluated without the additional cost of animal sacrifice.
为了开发具有大量电极的视网膜植入物，有必要确保它们不会因电路产生的热量而对神经组织造成损伤。了解诱发热损伤的功率阈值将极大地有助于植入物功率预算的制定，这对植入物电路的设计有重大影响。在本研究中，我们开发并测试了一种体外设备，该设备能够在当前假体植入部位消散热能，同时测量和记录沿视网膜组织多个位置的温度分布。还创建了猫眼的有限元热模型，并通过体外测试进行了验证，从而能够在不增加动物牺牲成本的情况下评估更大范围的热影响。
