Floating Micro-Stimulators for Neural Prosthetics

描述(申请人提供)：电激活周围和中枢神经系统用于治疗神经疾病已经研究了几十年，一些设备已经成功地进入临床阶段。人工耳蜗，用于脊髓损伤的膀胱和肠道控制的骶根刺激，以及用于癫痫的迷走神经刺激，这些都是每年被植入数千名患者的此类装置的一些著名的例子。阻碍或以其他方式阻碍许多其他神经假体装置的实施的一个主要障碍是刺激电极与神经组织的机械不匹配以及导致组织损伤的电线连接的拴系。非常需要无互连且足够小的可远程控制的电刺激器，以便在最小限度地替换神经组织的情况下实现良好的空间选择性。我们建议开发非常小(约200微米)的光伏元件，这些元件可以植入脊髓或大脑皮层，并使用近红外激光从硬脑膜外通过神经组织激活。这些浮动光激活微电刺激器(火焰)的几何结构和界面属性将进行优化，以最大限度地将能量转移到组织中，同时将设备尺寸降至最小。不同尺寸的设备将被设计成满足不同神经刺激应用的需求。优化火焰的刺激特性将在介质(琼脂/盐水)和活体(大鼠)中进行测试。未来的设计将包括火焰的高级版本，这些火焰可以针对不同波长的光进行调整，以进行选择性激活。光通信中的硅技术已经得到了广泛的开发和研究，并可以通过适当的研究来改进以用于神经刺激。一些即时的应用包括但不限于刺激视觉和听觉皮质以替代这些感官，以及微刺激腰骶髓以控制膀胱和脊髓损伤的运动。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Electrical activation of the peripheral and central nervous system has been investigated for treatment of neural disorders for many decades and a number of devices have already moved into the clinical phase with success. Cochlear prostheses, sacral root stimulation for bladder and bowel control in spinal cord injury, and vagus nerve stimulation in epilepsy are some of the well-known examples of such devices that are being implanted in thousands of patients every year. A major obstacle that has been preventing or otherwise impeding the implementation of many other neural prosthetic devices is the mechanical mismatch of the stimulation electrodes with the neural tissue and the tethering of the wire connections that result in tissue trauma. Electrical stimulators that are remotely controllable with no interconnects and sufficiently small so that a good spatial selectivity is achieved with minimal replacement of the neural tissue are greatly needed. We propose to develop very small (approximately 200 um) photovoltaic elements that can be implanted into the spinal cord or the brain cortex and activated from outside the dura mater through the neural tissue using near infrared laser beams. The geometry and the interface properties of these floating light activated micro electrical stimulators (FLAMES) will be optimized for maximum transfer of energy into the tissue while minimizing the device size. Devices with various sizes will be designed to meet the requirements of different neural stimulation applications. The stimulation properties of the optimized FLAMES will be tested in medium (agar/saline) and in vivo (rat). Future designs will include advanced versions of the FLAMES that are tuned for different wavelengths of light for selective activation. The silicon technology of optical communication has already been developed and studied extensively and can be modified for neural stimulation with reasonable amount of research. Some of the immediate applications include but not limited to visual and auditory cortex stimulation for substitution of these senses, and micro-stimulation of the lumbo-sacral cord for bladder control and locomotion in spinal cord injury.