Intracortical Visual Prothesis

描述（由申请人提供）：这是一个修改后的申请， 提议的生物工程合作伙伴关系，以研究皮质内 视觉假体在过去的30年里，NIH资助了一些研究， 提供了电极技术的重大进步， 安全刺激视觉皮层的标准。然而，整合 将电极转换成可靠的互连多通道阵列，可植入 多通道刺激器，以及基础视觉科学研究， 确定皮质内假体的功能有用性是缺乏的。 因此，以前的研究不足以作为考虑的基础。 是否需要进行长期人体植入。 拟议计划的总体目标是推进技术 足以提供合理的可靠性和安全性预期， 植入式硬件，开发一种动物模型， 和电刺激研究，并解决病人志愿者的心理 以及未来长期植入皮质内视觉系统的伦理问题 假肢 具体目标是： 1.建立一种灵长类动物模型，用于测试大的感觉反应。 多个平行的皮质内刺激电极。 2.将早期人类对点光幻视感知的研究扩展到更普遍的 一种利用其他V1调优属性的方法，如方向 选择性，以创建更丰富的视觉功能集。会来做这项工作 在动物模型中进行心理物理测试。 3.证明我们提出的安全性、有效性和电化学稳定性 使用体外和体内组合的皮质内电极阵列 试验. 4.确定的最佳物理配置，并设计 高可靠性植入式感应供电刺激器，连接到 外部计算机控制器。 5.开发安全的植入方法，包括术前和术后成像 技术，以优化和最小化植入手术的持续时间 程序. 6.建立未来人体植入的标准， 对道德和心理问题进行全面的多方面审查。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a revised application for a proposed Bioengineering Partnership to research strategies for an intracortical visual prosthesis. During the past 30 years, the NIH has funded studies that provided significant advances in electrode technology and establishment of criteria for safe stimulation of the visual cortex. However, the integration of electrodes into reliable, interconnected multichannel arrays, implantable multichannel stimulators, and the fundamental visual science studies to determine the functional usefulness of an intracortical prosthesis are lacking. For this reason, previous studies are an insufficient basis for considering whether proceeding to chronic human implantation is warranted. The overall objectives of the proposed program are to advance the technology sufficiently to provide a reasonable expectation of reliability and safety for implantable hardware, develop an animal model to perform crucial psychophysical and electrical stimulation studies, and address patient-volunteer psychological and ethical issues of a future chronically-implanted intracortical visual prosthesis. The Specific Aims are: 1. Develop a primate animal model for testing the sensory responses to large numbers of parallel intracortical stimulation electrodes. 2. Extend earlier human work on point-phosphene perception to a more general approach that exploits other V1 tuning properties, such as orientation selectivity, to create a richer visual feature set. This will be done by psychophysical testing in the animal model. 3. Demonstrate safety, efficacy, and electrochemical stability of our proposed intracortical electrode arrays using a combination of in vitro and in vivo testing. 4. Determine the optimal physical configuration for, and design a high-reliability implantable inductively-powered stimulator, interfaced to an external computer controller. 5. Develop safe implantation methods, including pre- and post-operative imaging techniques, to optimize and minimize the duration of implant surgical procedures. 6. Establish criteria for proceeding to a future human implantation using a thorough multi-faceted examination of ethical and psychological issues.