HCC: Small: Collaborative Research: Packaging Optimization for Next-Generation Implantable Human-Computer Interface Devices

该项目代表了两个机构团队之间的持续合作。随着人类寿命的延长，由视网膜退行性疾病（如黄斑变性或视网膜色素变性）引起的失明是当今发达国家老年人的主要残疾。这些类型的“神经性”失明目前在医学上无法得到任何令人满意的治疗。现在有令人信服的人体实验证据表明，即使这些疾病导致光感受器（即视网膜上的视杆细胞和视锥细胞）的丧失，电刺激幸存下来的剩余视网膜神经元也可以绕过受损组织，将视觉信息传递给大脑。这与支持人工耳蜗发展的理念本质上是相同的，人工耳蜗取得了巨大的成功，使成千上万的失聪患者恢复了听力。pi和他们各自的团队已经为开发一种视网膜假体的目标工作了20多年，以类似的方式为患者恢复真正有用的视力。在包括美国国家科学基金会在内的许多机构的资助下，他们已经创造了一种具有200多个可单独寻址通道的小型化高密度植入式无线驱动神经假体包的使能技术，这是目前任何商用神经刺激器输入和输出的三倍多。该领域创造用于神经刺激和/或记录的复杂集成电路的能力已经超过了长期植入式封装、微电极阵列和组装技术的发展。如果经过优化，这些技术将使同时与数百个神经组织连接的新设备成为可能。这是PI在当前项目中的目标。这笔资金将补充现有的pi及其合作者的资助，并将允许他们完成新的200多个通道共烧陶瓷信号馈通盘的开发，以优化与神经组织接口的高密度微电极阵列的微制造工艺，并改进组装植入物封装所需的键合和互连工艺。更广泛的影响：200多个通道的无线驱动植入物将构成项目的主要成果，其个体可寻址刺激电极的数量是目前任何一组的三倍以上。这笔资金将进一步允许PI为后期临床前测试准备设备（预计将得到VA的后续支持）。项目结果将在出版物中广泛传播，并在康复研究和发展社区内分发样品装置。该设备是这个项目的重点，也将在无数其他未来的长期植入式假肢，姑息设备和人机界面设备中发挥作用。

This project represents an ongoing collaboration between teams at two institutions. As people live longer, blindness caused by degenerative diseases of the retina such as macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa is today a major disability among the aging in the developed world. These types of "neural" blindness cannot currently be medically treated in any satisfactory manner. There is now compelling experimental evidence in humans that even when such diseases cause a loss of photoreceptors (i.e., rod and cone cells in the retina), electrical stimulation of the remaining retinal neurons that survive this loss can be used to bypass the damaged tissue and deliver visual information to the brain. This is essentially the same concept that supported the development of the cochlear prosthesis, which has been a fabulous success, restoring hearing to many tens of thousands of deaf patients. The PIs and their respective teams have been working for over 20 years toward the goal of developing a retinal prosthesis to restore truly useful vision to patients in an analogous manner. With prior funding from a number of agencies including NSF, they have created enabling technology for a miniaturized high-density implantable wirelessly-driven neuro-prosthesis package with over 200 individually-addressable channels, which is over three times the inputs and outputs in any current commercially available neurostimulator. The field's ability to create complex integrated circuitry for neurostimulation and/or recording has outpaced the development of long-term implantable packaging, microelectrode array, and assembly technology. If optimized, those technologies would make possible new devices that interface with hundreds of neural tissue sites simultaneously. This is the PI's aim in the current project. The funding will complement existing grants to the PIs and their collaborators, and will allow them to complete development of a new 200+ channel co-fired ceramic signal feed-through disc, to optimize the micro-fabrication process for high-density microelectrode arrays that interface with neural tissue, and to improve the bonding and interconnection processes required to assemble the implant package. Broader Impacts: The 200+ channel wirelessly-driven implant that will constitute the primary project outcome will have over three times the number of individually-addressable stimulating electrodes now available from any group. This funding will further allow the PI to ready devices for later pre-clinical testing (with anticipated follow-on support from the VA). Project results will be widely disseminated in publications, and by distributing sample devices within the rehabilitation R&D community. The device which is the focus of this project will also be useful in a myriad other future chronically implantable prosthetics, palliative devices, and human-computer interface devices.