126 results about "Retinal ganglion" patented technology

A method, device and system for stimulating visual tissue, typically in the retina or visual cortex, to achieve an artificial percept of light or image. The method includes providing stimulating electrodes suitable for placement in proximity to the visual tissue and generating a series of short-duration stimulation signals having a duration of less than about 0.5 milliseconds each. The short-duration stimulation signals are applied through the stimulating electrodes with varying frequencies that are substantially matched to a spiking range of frequencies of at least one ganglion cell for perceiving brightness or image.

In vivo imaging may be used to assess a condition (e.g., a state of glaucoma or a state of ocular hypertension) of an eye of a living animal. A dye may be intravenously injected into the living animal. The dye may bind to amyloid in the nervous system of the animal. Images may be taken of a retina, an optic nerve head, an optic nerve, the lateral geniculate nucleus, and/or the visual cortex. Images may be taken using methods such as fluorescent angiography, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, positron emission tomography, and/or single photon emission computed tomography. The condition of the eye and/or retinal ganglion cells in the eye may be assessed from one or more of the images. The condition of the eye may be assessed based on the presence of amyloid in one or more of the images.

The invention discloses an artificial retina implant. The artificial retina implant comprises a receiving coil, a demodulation stimulation module, an electrode array and a loop electrode. The receiving coil is in alignment connection with a transmission coil of an artificial retina in-vitro device and receives image coding signals and energy emitted by the in-vitro device, the demodulation stimulation module is connected with the receiving coil and decodes the image coding signals received by the receiving coil, converts the received image coding signals into electrical signals and transmits the electrical signals to the electrode array, and the received energy is converted. The artificial retina implant can achieve the visual effect only by stimulating retinal ganglion cells of the inner layer, and is easy to implant, safe and reliable.

The invention belongs to the field of pharmaceutical preparations, and relates to a long-acting sustained release preparation for preventing or treating retinal damage, and a preparation method thereof. The long-acting sustained release preparation takes erythropoietin (EPO) as an active component, takes dextran as a protective agent for the active component, and takes poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), polylactic acid or polycaprolactone as a coating component to prepare sustained release microspheres, wherein the erythropoietin is coated by the poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), polylactic acid or polycaprolactone. Proven by animal experiments, the sustained release microspheres of the long-acting sustained release preparation provided by the invention have the same protective actions on the ganglionic cells of damaged retinas by single vitreous chamber injection and repeated EPO protein vitreous chamber injection, and the sustained release microspheres are capable of avoiding a series of complications caused by many times of injection and overcoming the defects of repeated intraocular injection administration and gene therapy. The long-acting sustained release preparation provided by the invention adopts intraocular local administration, can reduce the dosage and treatment cost, and can not generate adverse effects on other organs or tissues in vivo.

The invention discloses an artificial retina system which comprises an in-vitro part and an implantation part. The in-vitro part comprises a portable power source, vision glasses and a transmission coil. The portable power source is connected with the vision glasses to provide external power supply for the whole artificial retina system. The vision glasses comprise a camera lens, a main board and an interface board. The transmission coil is connected with a radio frequency modulation module and used for receiving an image coded signal. The implantation part comprises a receiving coil, a demodulation stimulating module and a stimulating electrode. The receiving coil is in alignment connection with the transmission coil. The demodulation stimulating module is connected with the receiving coil, decodes the image coded signal received by the receiving coil and converts the image coded signal into an electric signal to be transmitted to the stimulating electrode. The stimulating electrode comprises a plurality of contact electrodes and electrode wires connected with the contact electrodes one to one. The artificial retina system can directly stimulate retinal ganglion cells on the innermost layer, most electronic devices are arranged on the in-vitro part, and therefore images are updated and processed easily.

The present invention relates to taurine or taurine-like substances for the prevention and treatment of a disease associated with retinal ganglion cell degeneration. More particularly the invention relates to a substance selected from the group consisting of taurine, a taurine precursor, a taurine metabolite, a taurine derivative, a taurine analog and a substance required for the taurine biosynthesis for the prevention and treatment of a disease associated with retinal ganglion cell degeneration.

The present invention provides an isolated nucleic acid molecule comprising, or consisting of, the nucleic acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:1 or a nucleic acid sequence of at least 400 bp having at least 80% identity to said sequence of SEQ ID NO:1, wherein said isolated nucleic acid molecule specifically leads to the expression in direction selective retinal ganglion cells of a gene when operatively linked to a nucleic acid sequence coding for said gene.

Contemplated compositions and methods employ a TGF-beta superfamily protein or antagonist thereof to treat a neural disorder characterized by an imbalance in differentiated functional sensory and neural cells derived from a sensory/neural progenitor cell. Preferably, GDF-11 and/or antagonists thereof are employed in the treatment of diseases in which visual and/or auditory progenitor cells will provide for a repair mechanism to the disease. Most preferably, GDF-11 is employed as a modulator of competency to increase production of retinal ganglion cells, retinal photoreceptors, retinal amacrine cells, sensory hair and supporting cells of the vestibulocochlear epithelium, and/or neurons and supporting cells of the spiral acoustic ganglion and vestibulo-cochlear (auditory) nerve to which it gives rise.

The invention relates to a contour detection method on the basis of a primary visual pathway calculation model. A primary visual pathway computation model is constructed, and contour detection is realized by simulating the transmission and processing process of visual information flows. A classical receptive field direction selection model combining multi-scale features is provided, and a multi-scale feature fusion strategy is utilized to simulate the primary contour response of the retinal ganglion. In a visual pathway from the retinal ganglion to the lateral geniculate nucleus, a space-timecoding mechanism is adopted for reducing redundant features in the primary contour response. A computation model with non-classical receptive field isotropic suppression properties is provided, and bymeans of a synergistic effect of non-subsampled contourlet transform and Gabor transform, a processing effect of lateral suppression characteristics of a non-classical receptive field on texture background information is simulated; a feedforward mechanism of a primary visual pathway to the primary visual cortex is simulated, visual characteristics of multiple visual pathways are fused, and the contour response is finally obtained. According to the contour detection method, a main body contour can be effectively highlighted, and a texture background can be suppressed.

An apparatus for in vivo electroporating a plasmid into a retina of any eye includes a first electrode with a first polarity of voltage placed in contact with a cornea of the eye, a second electrode with an opposite second voltage at least in part behind the retina, and a pulsed voltage source for providing a pulsed DC voltage with an optimized field strength amplitude, frequency, number of pulses, group repetition rate and duration of pulse and group repetition, which are optimized for transfection of the channelrhodospsin-2 (ChR2) gene into the retinal ganglion cells. An in vivo method for treating retinal ganglion cells in an eye without use of viral transfection includes the steps of nonviral in vivo delivering a channelrhodospsin-2 (ChR2) gene to target the specific (retinal ganglion) cells of a retina by intravitreous injection of plasmid DNA, electroporating the plasmid into the retina and use of image intensification device for stimulating the retinal ganglion cells with ambient lighting conditions.

A new combined index of structure and function (CSFI) for staging and detecting glaucomatous damage is provided. An observational study including 333 glaucomatous eyes (295 with perimetric glaucoma and 38 with preperimetric glaucoma) and 330 eyes of healthy subjects is described. All eyes were tested with standard automated perimetry (SAP) and spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SDOCT) within 6 months. Estimates of the number of retinal ganglion cells (RGC) were obtained from SAP and SDOCT and a weighted averaging scheme was used to obtain a final estimate of the number of RGCs for each eye. The CSFI was calculated as the percent loss of RGCs obtained by subtracting estimated from expected RGC numbers. The performance of the CSFI for discriminating glaucoma from normal eyes and the different stages of disease was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The mean CSFI, representing the mean estimated percent loss of RGCs, was 41% and 17% in the perimetric and pre-perimetric groups, respectively (P<0.001). They were both significantly higher than the mean CSFI in the normal group (P<Q.0( )1). The CSFI had larger ROC curve areas than isolated indexes of structure and function for detecting perimetric and preperimetric glaucoma and differentiating among early, moderate and advanced stages of visual field loss. An index combining structure and function performed better than isolated structural and functional measures for detection of perimetric and preperimetric glaucoma as well as for discriminating different stages of the disease.

The invention provides a medicine for preventing retinal ganglion oxidative stress. The medicine is a preparation prepared by taking a DNA tetrahedron as an active component and adding pharmaceutically acceptable auxiliary materials or auxiliary components. The invention also provides application of the DNA tetrahedron in preparation of the medicine for preventing oxidative stress of retinal ganglion cells and apoptosis. The tFNA is used for preparing the medicine for preventing oxidative stress of the retinal ganglion cells, is helpful for treating diseases caused by oxidative stress of the retinal ganglion cells such as glaucoma, and has a very good application prospect.

Microbial type rhodopsins, such as the light-gated cation-selective membrane channel, channelrhodopsin-2 (Chop2/ChR2) or the ion pump halorhodopsin (HaloR) are expressed in retinal ganglion cells upon transduction using recombinant AAV vectors. Selective targeting of these transgenes for expression in discrete subcellular regions or sites is achieved by including a sorting motif in the vector that can target either the central area or surround (off-center) area of these cells. Nucleic acid molecules comprising nucleotide sequences encoding such rhodopsins and sorting motifs and their use in methods of differential expression of the transgene are disclosed. These compositions and methods provide significant improvements for restoring visual perception and various aspects of vision, particular in patients with retinal disease.

The invention discloses a method for preparing a precursor cell of a retinal ganglion sample. In the method, the co-culture and/or mixed co-culture of a Transwell layered co-culture system is carried out on bone mesenchymal stem cells and the precursor cell of the retinal ganglion of a rat with gestational age of 13 to 14 days, thereby inducing to prepare the precursor cell of the retinal ganglion sample. The method is simple and easy to be carried out, has high inducing efficiency, does not need to transfer a foreign gene and has the advantages of safety and practicability.

The invention belongs to the field of pharmacy, and relates to application of sodium valproate in preparation of medicaments for treating or improving optic nerve pathological changes of glaucoma. The in-vitro cell culture experiment and in-vivo animal experiment indicate that sodium valproate with certain concentration can promote retina ganglionic cells (RGCs) cultured in vitro to survive and enhance the extension capacity of the axon, and can lower the expression of proapoptotic gene BAX and promote the RGCs to survive under the conditions of chronic high intraocular pressure, thereby relieving the damage of RGCs. The experiments prove that the sodium valproate can protect the RGCs in the aspects of multiple pathogeneses of glaucoma optic nerve pathological changes, and further more, can be used as an active ingredient for preaprating medicaments for treating glaucoma optic nerve pathological changes, especially medicaments for protecting RGCs. The invention has important application value and favorable social and economic benefits in clinical treatment of glaucoma.

Methods are disclosed herein for treating glaucoma in a subject. In some embodiments, the methods increase retinal ganglion cell survival. The disclosed method use exosomes and/or miRNA.

The present invention relates to methods to treat glaucoma and glaucoma-related conditions through the regulation of changes in gene expression that are mediated by high intraocular pressure or α2 macgroglobulin administration. Glaucoma, retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death and chronic ocular hypertension are treated using pharmaceutical compositions which comprise substances that inhibit the expression or activity of intraocular pressure-regulated early genes (IPREGs) or their gene products that are up-regulated by high intraocular pressure or α2 macgroglobulin administration and/or which increase the expression or activity of IPREGs or their gene products that are down-regulated by high intraocular pressure or α2 macgroglobulin administration. The invention also relates to methods of identifying an IPREG and methods to test for chronic ocular degeneration and the onset of RGC stress in an individual by measuring the expression level of IPREG proteins.

The invention relates to a contour detection method based on visual mechanism dark edge enhancement. The method comprises the following steps: firstly, simulating retina photoreceptor cell response characteristics, and proposing a dark field adjustment model based on local brightness characteristics; then, in combination with the scale orientation characteristic of the classical receptive field ofthe ganglion cells, obtaining a primary contour response, and extracting global contour information by utilizing a principal component analysis method; then, when a retinal ganglion signal is transmitted to an outer knee body, simulating a side inhibition effect of a non-classical receptive field, further introducing a nerve cell sparse response characteristic, and cooperatively inhibiting a background strong texture of a primary contour; simulating the enhancement effect of micro-motion information on contour perception understanding so that background weak textures are reduced, and then using adaptive dynamic synapses for outputting and transmitting external knee body impulse responses to a primary visual cortex; and finally, correcting the primary contour response through global contour information, and outputting and quickly fusing the corrected primary contour response with the primary visual cortex response to generate a more accurate and effective contour detection result.

The present invention provides an isolated nucleic acid molecule comprising, or consisting of, the nucleic acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:1 or a nucleic acid sequence of at least 1800 bp having at least 80% identity to said sequence of SEQ ID NO:1, wherein said isolated nucleic acid molecule specifically leads to the expression in retinal ganglion cells of a gene when operatively linked to a nucleic acid sequence coding for said gene.