Farnum Alexander, Pelled Galit
Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States.
Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States.
Front Neurosci. 2020 Feb 18;14:36. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00036. eCollection 2020.
Developments of new strategies to restore vision and improving on current strategies by harnessing new advancements in material and electrical sciences, and biological and genetic-based technologies are of upmost health priorities around the world. Federal and private entities are spending billions of dollars on visual prosthetics technologies. This review describes the most current and state-of-the-art bioengineering technologies to restore vision. This includes a thorough description of traditional electrode-based visual prosthetics that have improved substantially since early prototypes. Recent advances in molecular and synthetic biology have transformed vision-assisted technologies; For example, optogenetic technologies that introduce light-responsive proteins offer excellent resolution but cortical applications are restricted by fiber implantation and tissue damage. Other stimulation modalities, such as magnetic fields, have been explored to achieve non-invasive neuromodulation. Miniature magnetic coils are currently being developed to activate select groups of neurons. Magnetically-responsive nanoparticles or exogenous proteins can significantly enhance the coupling between external electromagnetic devices and any neurons affiliated with these modifications. The need to minimize cytotoxic effects for nanoparticle-based therapies will likely restrict the number of usable materials. Nevertheless, advances in identifying and utilizing proteins that respond to magnetic fields may lead to non-invasive, cell-specific stimulation and may overcome many of the limitations that currently exist with other methods. Finally, sensory substitution systems also serve as viable visual prostheses by converting visual input to auditory and somatosensory stimuli. This review also discusses major challenges in the field and offers bioengineering strategies to overcome those.
通过利用材料科学、电子科学以及基于生物和基因的技术的新进展来开发恢复视力的新策略并改进现有策略，是世界各地极为重要的健康优先事项。联邦和私人实体正在视觉假体技术上投入数十亿美元。这篇综述描述了用于恢复视力的最新和最先进的生物工程技术。这包括对基于传统电极的视觉假体的全面描述，自早期原型以来，这些假体已经有了很大改进。分子生物学和合成生物学的最新进展改变了视觉辅助技术；例如，引入光响应蛋白的光遗传学技术提供了出色的分辨率，但皮层应用受到纤维植入和组织损伤的限制。人们还探索了其他刺激方式，如磁场，以实现非侵入性神经调节。目前正在开发微型磁线圈以激活特定的神经元群。磁响应纳米颗粒或外源蛋白可以显著增强外部电磁装置与任何与这些修饰相关的神经元之间的耦合。基于纳米颗粒的疗法尽量减少细胞毒性作用的需求可能会限制可用材料的数量。然而，在识别和利用对磁场有反应的蛋白质方面的进展可能会导致非侵入性的、细胞特异性的刺激，并可能克服目前其他方法存在的许多局限性。最后，感觉替代系统通过将视觉输入转换为听觉和体感刺激，也可作为可行的视觉假体。这篇综述还讨论了该领域的主要挑战，并提供了克服这些挑战的生物工程策略。
