Development of an implantable epiretinal vision prosthesis with integrated image acquisition (OPTOEPIRET)

开发具有集成图像采集功能的植入式视网膜前视觉假体 (OPTOEPIRET)

• 批准号: 278868304
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Anton Grabmaier
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Klinik für Augenheilkunde
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2014-12-31 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/278868304?language=en
• 关键词: Development; implantable; epiretinal; vision; prosthesis

In Germany about 10,000 people are suffering from Retinitis Pigmentosa. No treatment for this disease slowly leading to blindness is established. Seven percent of all blindness is caused by this disease. The photoreceptors (cones and rods) which convert the incoming light into electrical pulses are dying off gradually. Despite of the destroyed photoreceptors the connections from retinal nerve cells to the brain are partly still functioning. Therefore by electrically stimulating retinal nerve cells action potentials can be generated that are transmitted via nerve fibers to the visual cortex and processed to optical perceptions. Researchers are worldwide working on retinal prostheses based on electrical stimulation. These approaches differ in the placement of the stimulation electrodes. In the most sophisticated approaches the stimulation electrodes are placed epiretinally or subretinally. Implants that are used in humans today have in common that due to the small size of the electrode array only a small area of the retina can be stimulated. So the field of vision is very small and corresponds to only about 9°. The recovery of the peripheral recognition cannot be achieved with these systems. However the peripheral function of the retina is indispensable for autonomous movement in rooms. This capacity is dropped out first in retinitis pigmentosa patients. Whereas in the epiretinal approach an increase of the diameter of the stimulation array is still possible and by this an increase of the visual field, the subretinal approach will be very limited due to the danger of separation of the retina or further surgery complications. Within the proposal OPTOEPIRET the epiretinal approach will be extended by an integrated epiretinal recording of the image produced by the eye lens onto the retina. For this a flexible stimulation array with a diameter of about 12 mm (which corresponds to a visual field of about 40°) based on a thin flexible polyimide substrate will be developed. The backside of this substrate is faced to the eye lens. Thinned and therefore flexible camera-chips will be integrated having the same number of photodiodes as there are stimulation electrodes. The photodiode-array will now record the image produced by the eye-lens that would normally fall onto the retina. Integrated CMOS-circuitry converts this optical information in appropriate stimulation pulses that are forwarded to the electrodes on the front side of the substrate. By this approach no external image processing will be necessary.

在德国，大约有1万人患有视网膜色素变性。目前还没有针对这种慢慢导致失明的疾病的治疗方法。7%的失明是由这种疾病引起的。将入射光转换为电脉冲的感光器(视锥和视杆)正在逐渐消亡。尽管光感受器被破坏，但从视网膜神经细胞到大脑的连接部分仍在发挥作用。因此，通过电刺激视网膜神经细胞，可以产生动作电位，通过神经纤维传递到视觉皮质，并处理成光学感知。世界各地的研究人员都在研究基于电刺激的视网膜假体。这些方法在刺激电极的位置上有所不同。在最复杂的方法中，刺激电极被放置在视网膜上或视网膜下。今天用于人类的植入物有一个共同之处，即由于电极阵列的小尺寸，只能刺激视网膜的一小部分。所以视场很小，只对应9°左右。这些系统不能恢复外周识别。然而，视网膜的外周功能对于房间里的自主运动是不可或缺的。这种能力首先在视网膜色素变性患者身上消失。然而，在视网膜前入路中，仍然有可能增加刺激阵列的直径，从而增加视野，但由于视网膜分离或进一步的手术并发症的危险，视网膜下入路将非常有限。在OPTOEPIRET的提议中，视网膜前入路将通过将眼睛晶状体产生的图像整合到视网膜上的视网膜前记录来扩展。为此，将开发基于薄的柔性聚酰亚胺衬底的直径约12 mm(相当于约40°视野)的柔性刺激阵列。这种衬底的背面面向眼镜片。薄而灵活的相机芯片将被集成在一起，具有与刺激电极相同的光电二极管数量。光电二极管阵列现在将记录眼镜片产生的图像，这些图像通常会落在视网膜上。集成的cmos电路将这些光学信息转换成适当的刺激脉冲，这些脉冲被转发到基板正面的电极。通过这种方法，不需要进行外部图像处理。

项目成果

Design of a CMOS image sensor and stimulation IC for a wide-angle retina implant

用于广角视网膜植入的 CMOS 图像传感器和刺激 IC 的设计

• DOI: 10.1109/prime.2017.7974169
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: 2017 13th Conference on Ph.D. Research in Microelectronics and Electronics (PRIME)
• 作者: Raffelberg;Pascal;Waschkowski;Florian;Reinhard;Wilfried;Walter;Kokozinski;Rainer
• 通讯作者: Rainer