TY - GEN
T1 - Efficacy of electrical stimulation of retinal ganglion cells with temporal patterns resembling light-evoked spike trains
AU - Wong, Raymond C.S.
AU - Garrett, David J.
AU - Grayden, David B.
AU - Ibbotson, Michael R.
AU - Cloherty, Shaun L.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 IEEE.
PY - 2014/11/2
Y1 - 2014/11/2
N2 - People with degenerative retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa lose most of their photoreceptors but retain a significant proportion (∼30%) of their retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). Microelectronic retinal prostheses aim to bypass the lost photoreceptors and restore vision by directly stimulating the surviving RGCs. Here we investigate the extent to which electrical stimulation of RGCs can evoke neural spike trains with statistics resembling those of normal visually-evoked responses. Whole-cell patch clamp recordings were made from individual cat RGCs invitro. We first recorded the responses of each cell to short sequences of visual stimulation. These responses were converted to trains of electrical stimulation that we then presented to the same cell via an epiretinal stimulating electrode. We then quantified the efficacy of the electrical stimuli and the latency of the evoked spikes. In all cases, spikes were evoked with sub-millisecond latency (0.55 ms, median, ON cells, n = 8; 0.75 ms, median, OFF cells, n = 6) and efficacy ranged from 0.4-1.0 (0.79, median, ON cells; 0.97, median, OFF cells). These data demonstrate that meaningful spike trains, resembling normal responses of RGCs to visual stimulation, can be reliably evoked by epiretinal prostheses.
AB - People with degenerative retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa lose most of their photoreceptors but retain a significant proportion (∼30%) of their retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). Microelectronic retinal prostheses aim to bypass the lost photoreceptors and restore vision by directly stimulating the surviving RGCs. Here we investigate the extent to which electrical stimulation of RGCs can evoke neural spike trains with statistics resembling those of normal visually-evoked responses. Whole-cell patch clamp recordings were made from individual cat RGCs invitro. We first recorded the responses of each cell to short sequences of visual stimulation. These responses were converted to trains of electrical stimulation that we then presented to the same cell via an epiretinal stimulating electrode. We then quantified the efficacy of the electrical stimuli and the latency of the evoked spikes. In all cases, spikes were evoked with sub-millisecond latency (0.55 ms, median, ON cells, n = 8; 0.75 ms, median, OFF cells, n = 6) and efficacy ranged from 0.4-1.0 (0.79, median, ON cells; 0.97, median, OFF cells). These data demonstrate that meaningful spike trains, resembling normal responses of RGCs to visual stimulation, can be reliably evoked by epiretinal prostheses.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84929492625&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/EMBC.2014.6943936
DO - 10.1109/EMBC.2014.6943936
M3 - Conference contribution
T3 - 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2014
SP - 1707
EP - 1710
BT - 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2014
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2014
Y2 - 26 August 2014 through 30 August 2014
ER -