Current and future prospects for optoelectronic retinal prostheses

Abstract

There has been accelerating progress in the development of retinal prosthesis systems designed to partially restore vision to people with retinitis pigmentosa or macular degeneration. Current retinal prostheses can be divided into two types: those that receive power and information from passive or active photodiodes (optoelectronic systems) and those based on multielectrode arrays powered by cables or transcutaneous telemetry systems. Currently, four research groups have ongoing chronic implantation clinical studies, and two of these groups plan to have commercial retinal prosthesis systems available within the next 2 years. This paper reviews the development and current status of the most significant international retinal prosthesis research groups and discusses future prospects and issues associated with their retinal prosthesis systems.

Bayesian adaptive estimation of the contrast sensitivity function: The quick CSF method

“…(3) For functional validity, it is important that contrast sensitivity be tested under different conditions: for example, under day and night illumination, with and without glare (Abrahamsson & Sjöstrand, 1986). (4) For prospective vision therapeutics that will eventually treat focal retinal damage with stem cells (Bull, Johnson, & Martin, 2008; Kelley et al, 2008) or neural prosthetics (Colby, Chang, Stulting, & Lane, 2007; Dowling, 2008; Weiland, Liu, & Humayun, 2005), it will be critical to measure the progression or remediation of contrast sensitivity at isolated retinal loci. Current cards and charts are not flexible enough to adequately capture the range of normal and abnormal CSFs observed across different illumination and glare conditions, temporal frequencies, and retinal loci.…”

A curvable silicon retinal implant

“…The current pulses are interpreted as vision by the visual cortex. Placing the implant in the subretinal space (as compared to epiretinal) allows for utilization of the existing image-processing and data-compression functions of the inner nuclear layer [3]. Working at λ = 900 nm prevents confusion by preventing stimulation of the remaining functional photoreceptor cells.…”

Seeing the light: a photonic visual prosthesis for the blind

“…bipolar and amacrine cells). Both sub-retinal and epi-retinal approaches have been shown to be capable of generating phosphene percepts 11,12,13 . However, functional vision with these approaches is some way off.…”