IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2017 Sep;25(9):1605-1611. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2017.2682923. Epub 2017 Mar 15.
Millions of people around the world suffer from varying degrees of vision loss (including complete blindness) because of retinal degenerative diseases. Artificial retinal prosthesis, which is usually based on electrical neurostimulation, is the most advanced technology for different types of retinal degeneration. However, this technology involves placing a device into the eyeball, and such a highly invasive procedure is inevitably highly risk and expensive. Ultrasound has been demonstrated to be a promising technology for noninvasive neurostimulation, making it possible to stimulate the retina and induce action potentials similar to those elicited by light stimulation. However, the technology of ultrasound retinal stimulation still requires considerable developments before it could be applied clinically. This paper proposes a novel contact-lens array transducer for use in an ultrasound retinal prosthesis (USRP). The transducer was designed in the shape of a contact lens so as to facilitate acoustic coupling with the eye liquid. The key parameters of the ultrasound transducer were simulated, and results are presented that indicate the achievement of 2-D pattern generation and that the proposed contact-lens array is suitable for multiple-focus neurostimulation, and can be used in a USRP.
全球数百万人因视网膜退行性疾病而患有不同程度的视力丧失（包括完全失明）。人工视网膜假体通常基于电神经刺激，是治疗各种类型视网膜退行性疾病的最先进技术。然而，这种技术涉及将设备放置在眼球中，这种高度侵入性的手术不可避免地存在高风险和高成本。超声已被证明是一种很有前途的非侵入性神经刺激技术，它可以刺激视网膜并产生类似于光刺激引起的动作电位。然而，超声视网膜刺激技术在临床应用之前还需要相当多的发展。本文提出了一种用于超声视网膜假体（USRP）的新型隐形眼镜阵列换能器。该换能器被设计成隐形眼镜的形状，以便与眼液进行声耦合。模拟了超声换能器的关键参数，并给出了实现二维图案生成的结果，表明所提出的隐形眼镜阵列适合于多焦点神经刺激，并可用于 USRP。
