High resolution retinal prothesis

高分辨率视网膜假体

• 批准号: 530093-2018
• 负责人: Fontaine, Réjean
• 金额: $ 13.97万
• 依托单位: Université de Sherbrooke
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Collaborative Research and Development Grants
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=650919
• 关键词: resolution; retinal; prothesis

The potential of neurostimulation to improve quality of life for many is now recognized. Pacemakers (cardiac arrhythmia), cochlear implants (deafness), brain stimulators (Parkinson's treatment) and chronic pain relief are well established examples in the medical community. Visual prostheses, aimed at restoring visual acuity in blind patients, are still in their early stages for many reasons. Among them, the neuronal structure (detection, integration and differentiation) at the retina level, the network at the cerebral level, eye motion, the concave surface of the retina, and poor understanding of stimulation strategies are all elements adding to the complexity of developing an effective retinal simulation implant.**Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) are the first pathologies targeted with retinal prostheses. In both cases, a dysfunction of rods and cones affects visual acuity, an impairment which will affect 200M people by 2020. The medical neuromodulation space is set to reach $25B. The growth of the ophthalmology sub-market is forecast at 98%, reaching $1B by 2022.**This project aims to develop, in collaboration with iBIONICS Inc, (Ottawa, Canada) and the participation of the University of Melbourne (Australia) and the University of Ottawa (Canada), the first generation of high acuity retinal prosthesis. The latter is based on a high-density neurostimulator comprising an integrated circuit, along with its ancillary electronics, encapsulated in a hermetic diamond package. Unlike other retinal prostheses relying on an inductive link for transmitting both the power and data, the proposed prosthesis is based on a laser beam combined with a pupil tracker, thus avoiding the eyeball motion problem and the need to run wires, breaching both the hermiticity of the biocompatible package and the eyewall itself. The flexible stimulator architecture will support any stimulation pattern thanks to a fully programmable approach, and can thus support future exploration of stimulation strategies, making the prosthesis a wonderful research tool, as well as an excellent choice for recovering vision for people with AMD or RP.

神经刺激改善许多人生活质量的潜力现在已得到认可。起搏器（心律失常）、人工耳蜗（耳聋）、脑刺激器（帕金森氏症治疗）和慢性疼痛缓解是医学界公认的例子。由于许多原因，旨在恢复盲人视力的视觉假体仍处于早期阶段。其中，视网膜水平的神经元结构（检测，整合和分化），大脑水平的网络，眼睛运动，视网膜的凹面以及对刺激策略的理解不足都是增加开发有效视网膜模拟植入物复杂性的因素。视网膜相关性黄斑变性（AMD）和视网膜色素变性（RP）是视网膜假体针对的第一种病理。在这两种情况下，视杆细胞和视锥细胞的功能障碍会影响视力，到2020年，这种损害将影响2亿人。医疗神经调节领域将达到250亿美元。眼科子市场的增长预计为98%，到2022年将达到10亿美元。该项目旨在与iBIONICS公司（加拿大渥太华）合作，并在墨尔本大学（澳大利亚）和渥太华大学（加拿大）的参与下，开发第一代高视力视网膜假体。后者基于高密度神经刺激器，其包括集成电路，沿着其辅助电子器件，封装在密封的金刚石封装中。与其他依赖于感应链路来传输电力和数据的视网膜假体不同，所提出的假体基于与瞳孔跟踪器相结合的激光束，从而避免了眼球运动问题和对运行电线的需要，从而破坏了生物相容性包装和眼壁本身的气密性。灵活的刺激器架构将支持任何刺激模式，这要归功于完全可编程的方法，因此可以支持未来对刺激策略的探索，使假体成为一种极好的研究工具，也是AMD或RP患者恢复视力的绝佳选择。