Rountree Corey M, Inayat Samsoon, Saggere Laxman, Troy John B
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2014;2014:2593-6. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2014.6944153.
Millions of people worldwide face partial or total vision loss due to inherited photoreceptor degenerative diseases, which currently have no cure. Retinal prostheses have been developed to restore vision by electrically stimulating surviving retinal neurons, but have low spatial resolution and nonselectively stimulate retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons along with somata. We propose a biomimetic solution: using the neurotransmitter glutamate to chemically stimulate RGCs to avoid the disadvantages of electrical stimulation. Our results demonstrate that glutamate stimulation has a spatial resolution comparable to current-generation electrical prostheses, can stimulate RGC somata without stimulating axons, and can produce spatially differential responses in RGC subtypes. These results highlight the benefits of a neurotransmitter-based retinal prosthesis over current-generation electrical prostheses.
全球数百万人因遗传性光感受器退行性疾病面临部分或完全失明，目前尚无治愈方法。视网膜假体已被开发出来，通过电刺激存活的视网膜神经元来恢复视力，但空间分辨率较低，并且会非选择性地刺激视网膜神经节细胞（RGC）的轴突和胞体。我们提出了一种仿生解决方案：使用神经递质谷氨酸盐化学刺激RGC，以避免电刺激的缺点。我们的结果表明，谷氨酸盐刺激具有与当代电假体相当的空间分辨率，可以刺激RGC胞体而不刺激轴突，并且可以在RGC亚型中产生空间差异反应。这些结果突出了基于神经递质的视网膜假体相对于当代电假体的优势。
