Work

Towards multifocal ultrasonic neural stimulation II: design considerations for an acoustic retinal prosthesis

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: Ultrasound waves, widely used as a non-invasive diagnostic modality, were recently shown to stimulate neuronal activity. Functionally meaningful stimulation, as is required in order to form a unified percept, requires the dynamic generation of simultaneous stimulation patterns. In this paper, we examine the general feasibility and properties of an acoustic retinal prosthesis, a new vision restoration strategy that will combine ultrasonic neuro-stimulation and ultrasonic field sculpting technology towards non-invasive artificial stimulation of surviving neurons in a degenerating retina. We explain the conceptual framework for such a device, study its feasibility in an in vivo ultrasonic retinal stimulation study and discuss the associated design considerations and tradeoffs. Finally, we simulate and experimentally validate a new holographic method--the angular spectrum-GSW--for efficient generation of uniform and accurate continuous ultrasound patterns. This method provides a powerful, flexible solution to the problem of projecting complex acoustic images onto structures like the retina.

Source: Journal of Neural Engineering

DOI: 10.1088/1741-2560/9/2/026006

Authors: Omer Naor, Yoni Hertzberg, Esther Zemel, Eitan Kimmel, Shy Shoham

Institutions: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, InSightec (Israel)

Language: English

Topic: Neuroscience and Neural Engineering

Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: bronze

Funder: FP7 Ideas: European Research Council