High resolution retinal prothesis

神经刺激提高许多人的生活质量的潜力现在已经被认识到了。起搏器(心律失常)、人工耳蜗植入物(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，旨在恢复盲人患者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、眼球运动、视网膜的凹面以及对刺激策略的缺乏理解都增加了开发有效的视网膜模拟植入物的复杂性。**老年性黄斑变性(AMD)和视网膜色素变性(RP)是第一批针对视网膜假体的病理疾病。在这两种情况下，视杆和视锥细胞功能障碍都会影响视力，到2020年，这一损害将影响2亿人。医疗神经调节空间将达到250亿美元。眼科细分市场的增长率预计为98%，到2022年将达到10亿美元。**该项目旨在与加拿大渥太华的iBIONICS公司合作，并在澳大利亚墨尔本大学和加拿大渥太华大学的参与下，开发第一代高视力视网膜假体。后者是基于一个高密度神经刺激器，包括一个集成电路及其辅助电子设备，封装在一个密封的钻石封装中。与其他依赖感应链路传输能量和数据的视网膜假体不同，拟议的假体基于激光束和瞳孔跟踪器相结合，从而避免了眼球运动问题和走线的需要，破坏了生物兼容包装和眼壁本身的隐蔽性。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，因此可以支持未来刺激策略的探索，使假体成为一种很好的研究工具，也是AMD或RP患者恢复视力的绝佳选择。

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.