Towards cortical visual prosthetics

描述（由申请人提供）：视觉对象识别对于大多数日常任务至关重要，包括面部识别，阅读和导航。尽管在过去的二十年里，计算能力有了巨大的提高，但即使在简单的识别任务中，一个三岁的孩子仍然比最复杂的算法表现得更好。理解人类视觉系统识别物体的计算不仅对理解大脑皮层的功能（和故障）有深远的意义，而且对为视障人士开发视觉假肢装置也有深远的意义。我们将神经生理学、电刺激和机器学习工具结合起来，进一步了解人类视觉系统执行的神经元回路、算法和计算，以执行视觉模式识别。在绝大多数视障人士或盲人中，问题起源于视网膜水平，而视觉皮层却没有受损。我们的建议构成了一个原理证明的方法，以开发视觉假体装置，依赖于视觉皮层的电刺激。本课题的具体目的是测试视觉皮层中信息解码和再编码的可能性：(1)在线读取来自人类视觉皮层的视觉信息(2)在人类视觉皮层中写入视觉信息。我们利用一个难得的机会，通过研究因临床原因植入电极的患者，以高空间和时间分辨率研究人类大脑。我们的电生理记录为我们提供了人类颞叶回路的独特视角，并允许我们测试皮层视觉假肢在行为人类受试者中的可行性。与公共卫生相关：对皮质视觉假肢来说，视力受损和盲人面临的主要挑战之一是缺乏视觉物体识别能力。视觉识别对于包括导航和面部识别在内的大多数日常任务都至关重要。我们的建议是一种基于视觉皮层电刺激的视觉修复装置的原理验证方法。

Description (provided by applicant): Visual object recognition is crucial for most everyday tasks including face identification, reading and navigation. In spite of the massive increase in computational power over the last two decades, a 3-year-old still outperforms the most sophisticated algorithms even in simple recognition tasks. Understanding the computations performed by the human visual system to recognize objects will have profound implications not only to understand the functions (and malfunction) of the cerebral cortex but also for developing visual prosthetic devices for the visually impaired. We combine neurophysiology, electrical stimulation and tools from machine learning to further our understanding of the neuronal circuits, algorithms and computations performed by the human visual system to perform visual pattern recognition. In the vast majority of visually impaired or blind people, the problems originate at the level of the retina while the visual cortex remains unimpaired. Our proposal constitutes a proof- of-principle approach towards developing visual prosthetic devices that rely on electrical stimulation of visual cortex. The specific aims of this proposal are designed to test the possibility of decoding and recoding information in visual cortex: (1) Read-out of visual information from human visual cortex on line (2) Write-in of visual information in human visual cortex. We take advantage of a rare opportunity to study the human brain at high spatial and temporal resolution by studying patients who have electrodes implanted for clinical reasons. Our electrophysiological recordings provide us with a unique view of the human temporal lobe circuitry and allow us to test the feasibility of cortical visual prosthetics in behaving human subjects. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Towards cortical visual prosthetics one of the key challenges for the visually impaired and blind people is the lack of visual object recognition capabilities. Visual recognition is crucial for most everyday tasks including navigation and face identification. Our proposal is a proof-of-principle approach towards the development of visual prosthetics devices based on electrical stimulation in visual cortex.