The document discusses the development of retinal implants to restore vision. It describes efforts in Germany to develop implants that can stimulate retinal structures via electrodes on flexible substrates. Two approaches are discussed: epiretinal implants that would stimulate ganglion cells, and subretinal implants that could substitute for degenerated photoreceptors.
The document discusses the development of retinal implants to restore vision. It describes efforts in Germany to develop implants that can stimulate retinal structures via electrodes on flexible substrates. Two approaches are discussed: epiretinal implants that would stimulate ganglion cells, and subretinal implants that could substitute for degenerated photoreceptors.
The document discusses the development of retinal implants to restore vision. It describes efforts in Germany to develop implants that can stimulate retinal structures via electrodes on flexible substrates. Two approaches are discussed: epiretinal implants that would stimulate ganglion cells, and subretinal implants that could substitute for degenerated photoreceptors.
The document discusses the development of retinal implants to restore vision. It describes efforts in Germany to develop implants that can stimulate retinal structures via electrodes on flexible substrates. Two approaches are discussed: epiretinal implants that would stimulate ganglion cells, and subretinal implants that could substitute for degenerated photoreceptors.
J.-Uwe Meyer Fraunhofer-Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Ensheimer Str. 48, 66386 St. Ingbert, Germany [email protected]
SUMMARY INTRODUCTION
A key-application for microsystems in life-science are The physiology of vision is most complex and far from active microimplants for restoring and substituting lost completely understood. Despite enormous efforts and or impaired biological functions in humans. The devel- advances in clinical treatment of eye diseases there is opment of functional microdevices that fit in the human no established method to prevent or cure degenerative eye and that take over lost biological functions to re- processes in eye, as age related macula degeneration store vision is achallenge that several international (AMD) or retinitis pigmentosa (RP). RP can lead to research groups have engaged in. This paper describes blindness when photoreceptors in the retina are com- the joint multi-team efforts of German scientists to pletely degenerated. Recent advances in microtech- develop a microelectromechnical implant to stimulate nologies have paved the way to pursue the idea for retinal structures for regaining lost visional functions. developing a technical device that substitutes degener- Different types of active eye implants have been devel- ated visual photoreceptors and neural structures for oped for stimulation in the epi-retinal and sub-retinal stimulating intact neural tissue in a way that a mean- space. Microelectrode arrays for electrical stimulation ingful visual sensation is obtained. have been integrated into flexible and rigid substrates. Innovative microtechniques have been developed for Scientist worldwide have devoted substantial research obtaining biocompatible flexible microstructures, in- capacity to the development of a microtechnical retina terconnects, and hybrid assemblies to fit in the eye ball. implant. In the USA, at least two teams are tackling Biocompatibility of material and devices was investi- the challenge of developing an implantable retina gated in all design phases utilizing in vitro cell and stimulator [I] [2]. There are also teams in Japan [3] tissue culture test. Devices at various stages of devel- and in Australia [4] that develop an artificial retina opment have been evaluated in acute and chronic ani- prosthesis. This paper summarizes the multi-team ef- mal models. Passive stimulator electrode arrays (with- forts of German scientists to develop implantable retina out electronic components) remained in animals for stimulator devices. Two technical approaches have more than six months after implantation Furthermore, been followed. One approach is directed towards the animal experiments have shown that active devices realization of an epiretinal implant, the other towards equipped with silicon chips could be inserted and the development of a subretinal implant (Fig. 1). housed into the eye. Fully functiom~l chronic devices are presently tested in animals. Experiments on hu- mans are planned in the near future.
The technical requirements for epiretinal and subretinal into pulse trains. The signals are processed and con- devices differ substantially. This paper describes the verged in the functional neural layers of the retina microtechnical realization of both types of devices before they are transmitted through the optic nerve into concomitant with efforts to achieve biocompatible and the visual cortex. An epiretinal implant is stimulating bioresistant implants. directly the ganglion cells. The device is generating spike trains at defined sites of the retina. Because the epiretinal device does not rely on the natural data proc- essing of the neural compartments in the retina, all FUNDAMENT ALS ON RETINA signal encoding is synthesized. Hence, the epiretinal PHYSIOLOGY approach requires an encoder for mapping visual pat- terns onto pulse trains as inputs for electronic stimula- The retina in the eye converts light infonnation into tion. neural electrical signals, which the optic nerve trans- ports to the visual cortex of the brain. The visual cortex decodes the neural signals into meaningful image per- THE EPIRETINAL MICROIMPLANT ception. The retina is composed of approximately 126 million photoreceptors which have a size ranging from General architecture 2 to 3 f.1m. The photoreceptors provide an analog elec- The epiretinal device comprises three major functional trical signal to the attached bipolar neural cell layer. units: the retina encoder, a telemetry link for power and The bipolar cells convert the signal into electrical data transmission, and the implantable stimulator de- pulse trains maintaining spatiotemporal infonnation. vi ce (Fig. 3). The image sensor, the implantable power Signal processing and convergence is performed in all and data receiver as weil as the stimulator have been neural cell layers comprising horizontal cells, bipolar fabricated using standard CMOS technology [5] . cells, amacrine cells, and ganglion cells. Approxi- mately one million axons of the ganglion cells fonn the optic nerve which extends into the visual cortex of the brain. The light passes through the eye and through the 200 f.1m thin retina neural layer before reaching the photoreceptors (Fig. 2).
Fig. 3: The epiretinal system consisting of 3 func-
tional units: 1) eMOS image sensor and en- coder, 2) telemetry unit (external transmitter, implantable receiver) and 3) retina stimulator on a flexible substrate
Fig. 2: Light is passing through the eye and through
the neurallayers ofthe retina before reaching Dedicated Microelectronic Components the photoreceptors. A dedicated CMOS photodiode based sensor chip re- It is important to understand that a subretinal implant ceives the image. The light sensitivity ranges exceeds and a epiretinal implant substitutes different physio- seven decades ~ 140 dB). The 128 x 128 photodiodes logical functions. A subretinal implant with photodi- have been arranged in a hexagonal grid structure to odes and electrodes replaces the degenerated photore- achieve a quasi circular symmetrie spatial filter kerne\. ceptors. Hence, the technical implant must provide an A FPGA perfonns the spatial filtering of a receptive analog signal to the adjacent neural layers. An intact field utilizing the digital-memory like interface of the neural retina is assumed that maps the visual pattern CMOS image sensor. A multiply-add unit carries out
13 TRANSOUCERS '01 EUROSENSORS XV The 11th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors and Actuators, Munieh, Germany, June 10 -14,2001
