Towards multifocal ultrasonic neural stimulation II: design considerations for an acoustic retinal prosthesis.
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.
Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
Omer
O
Naor
Yoni
Y
Hertzberg
Esther
E
Zemel
Eitan
E
Kimmel
Shy
S
Shoham
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000465:Algorithms; D000779:Anesthetics, Local; D000818:Animals; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004596:Electroretinography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006696:Holography; D006801:Humans; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012160:Retina / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D012162:Retinal Degeneration / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000473:pathology; D012449:Safety; D013779:Tetrodotoxin; D014465:Ultrasonics / Q000379:methods*; D057488:Visual Prosthesis
D000779:Anesthetics, Local; D013779:Tetrodotoxin