35 results about "Retinal Neuron" patented technology

In one aspect, the invention provides vision prosthesis systems. Exemplary vision prosthesis systems of the invention comprise a light energy generator operably connected to a wearable head piece comprising a device for directing light energy produced by the light energy generator onto a mammalian retina, wherein the light energy generator is tuned to emit light energy of sufficient power to modulate neural activity in the retina. In another aspect, the invention provides methods for irradiating neurons in the retina of the mammalian eye by directing light energy produced by a light energy generator onto a mammalian retina. The methods of the invention may be used to directly modulate the activity of retinal neurons or to introduce molecules into retinal cells.

Nucleic acid vectors encoding light-gated cation-selective membrane channels, in particular channelrhodopsin-2 (Chop2), converted inner retinal neurons to photosensitive cells in photoreceptor-degenerated retina in an animal model. Such treatment restored visual perception and various aspects of vision. A method of restoring light sensitivity to a retina of a subject suffering from vision loss due to photoreceptor degeneration, as in retinitis pigmentosa or macular degeneration, is provided. The method comprises delivering to the subject by intravitreal or subretinal injection, the above nucleic acid vector which comprises an open reading frame encoding a rhodopsin, to which is operatively linked a promoter and transcriptional regulatory sequences, so that the nucleic acid is expressed in inner retinal neurons. These cells, normally light-insensitive, are converted to a light-sensitive state and transmit visual information to the brain, compensating for the loss, and leading to restoration of various visual capabilities.

The retinal prosthesis test device is comprised of a thin wafer of glass made from nanochannel glass (NGC) with very small channels perpendicular to the plane of the wafer filled with an electrical conductor forming microwires. One surface of the glass is ground to a spherical shape consistent with the radius of curvature of the inside of the retina. The NGC is hybridized to a silicon de-multiplexer and a video image is serially input to a narrow, flexible micro-cable and read into a 2-D array of unit cells in a pixel-by-pixel manner which samples the analog video input and stores the value as a charge on a MOS capacitor. After all unit cells have been loaded with the pixel values for the current frame, a biphasic pulse is sent to each unit cell which modulates the pulse in proportion to the pixel value stored therein. Because the biphasic pulses flow in parallel to each unit cell from a global external connection, the adjacent retinal neurons are all stimulated simultaneously, analogous to image photons stimulating photoreceptors in a normal retina. A permanent retinal implant device uses a NGC array hybridized to a silicon chip, the image is simultaneously generated within each cell through a photon-to-electron conversion using a silicon photodiode. The photons propagate directly through into the backside of the device. Electrical power and any control signals are transmitted through an inductively driven coil or antenna on the chip. The device collects the charge in storage capacitors via the photon-to-electron conversion process, stimulates the neural tissue with biphasic pulses in proportion to the stored charges, and resets the storage capacitors to repeat the process.

Disclosed herein are methods and compositions for treating glaucoma and other disorders related to degeneration of retinal neuronal cells, by treating a subject with a composition capable of inducing or increasing the expression of the 70 kD family of heat shock proteins (HSP70) in retinal neurons. Preferred embodiments include geranylgeranylacetone and/or gene therapy applications.

Disclosed are capsid-modified rAAV expression vectors, as well as infectious virions, compositions, and pharmaceutical formulations that include them. Also disclosed are methods of preparing and using novel capsid-protein-mutated rAAV vector constructs in a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic applications including, inter alia, as delivery agents for diagnosis, treatment, or amelioration of one or more diseases, disorders, or dysfunctions of the mammalian eye. Also disclosed are methods for intravitreal delivery of therapeutic gene constructs to retinal neuron cells, and specifically to ON bipolar cells, of the mammalian eye, as well as use of the disclosed compositions in the manufacture of medicaments for a variety of in vitro and/or in vivo applications including the treatment of retinitis pigmentosa, melanoma-associated retinopathy, and congenital stationary night blindness.

The invention discloses an image enhancement method in a dark light environment and belongs to the field of image processing. The problems of distorted representation result, blurred image contour andlow color saturation after enhancement seriously exist can be solved; The method comprises the following steps: extracting a brightness component V in an HSV in a dark light image, carrying out logarithmic transformation of global brightness, and carrying out overall brightness improvement on a low-illumination area in the dark light image; Obtaining neighborhood average brightness of pixel points in the current dark light image by using bilateral filtering under a receptive field three-Gaussian model of the retinal neurons; A function of extracting a local bright part from an image background is realized by utilizing top and bottom cap transformation processing, and then light and shade extraction and noise reduction are carried out on the image by utilizing top and bottom cap transformation; According to the method, the enhanced details of the dark-light color image can be well represented, the problem of non-uniform illumination distribution is solved, the overall contrast of the image is improved, the detail contour of the image is clear, and the color saturation is high.

The invention belongs to the field of biomedicine, and specifically relates to a method used for inducing differentiation of human multipotential stem cells into retinal progenitor cells. According to the method, human embryonic stem cells or human induced multipotential stem cells are induced in a medium containing N2, and then are delivered into a retina induction medium containing neural basis culture medium, knockout serum replacement and nicotinamide so as to obtain the retinal progenitor cells. The method is capable of increasing differentiation rate of human multipotential stem cells into retinal progenitor cells; and the retinal progenitor cells obtained via differentiation can be used for transplantation therapy of irreversible degenerative diseases of retinal neurons, such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, and also can be used for iPS cells sourced from patients as cell models in drug screening and gene interference experiments. Compared with existing technology, small molecule compounds used in the method are less, so that influences caused by non-anthropogenic factors are avoided effectively, and yield of obtained optic cup-like cells is obviously higher than that of existing induced differentiation methods.

The invention discloses a visual pathway multi-receptive-field directional association-based profile detection method. According to the method, classic receptive field characteristics of retinal neurons and non classic receptive field characteristics of LGN (Lateral Geniculate Nucleus) cells in a visual pathway are simulated from spatial scale characteristics of receptive fields of all levels and mutual associativity of receptive fields of the same level in the visual pathway, and rectangular receptive fields of the LGN cells are associated directionally for simulating direction selection characteristics of simple cells of V1 (primary visual cortex). According to the visual pathway multi-receptive-field directional association-based profile detection method proposed by the invention, an important role of visual characteristics in profile detection is brought into full play.

The invention relates to a light stimulation based retinal prosthesis repairing method and device. The method is performed by directly carrying out light stimulation on retinal neurons to help the blind to repair visual sense. The device is composed of image collecting and image processing subsystems, an LED (light-emitting diode) array and an LED control signal generator. The method can effectively stimulate retinal neurons and restore visual perception of patients with ablepsy, and has important social significance for improving the life quality of the blind.

Optoelectronic retinal prostheses transduce light into electrical current for neural stimulation. A novel optoelectronic pixel architecture is presented comprising a vertically integrated photo junction field-effect-transistor (Photo-JFET) and neural stimulating electrode. Experimental measurements demonstrate that optically addressed Photo-JFET pixels utilize phototransistive gain to produce a broad range of neural stimulation current and can effectively stimulate retinal neurons in vitro. The compact nature of the Photo-JFET pixel can enable high resolution retinal prostheses with a theoretical visual acuity ˜20/60 to help restore vision in patients with degenerative retinal diseases.

Provided herein are methods and compositions for neuroprotection. The neuroprotective composition can be or include cannabinol or a derivative thereof. The neuroprotective composition can be used in the treatment of a neurodegenerative disease. The neuroprotective composition can be used to protect retinal neurons from degeneration in a subject in need thereof, such as for treatment of glaucoma.

The invention discloses a method for promoting in-vitro amplification of RPCs (retinal progenitor cells) of a mouse by inhibiting microRNA (micro ribonucleic acid). MicroRNA miR-449a-5p is a non-codedsingle-stranded RNA molecule with length of 22 nucleotides, and the coded DNA sequence of the molecule is located on chromosome 13 of the mouse. The RPCs are cells with self-renewal capacity as wellas potential of being differentiated into retinal neurons and neuroglia. By means of synthesis of an antisense strand of miR-449a-5p, interference to level of endogenous miR-449a-5p is realized according to the principle of complementary pairing of basic groups, and in-vitro amplification of the RPCs can be effectively performed. The RPCs are development sources of photoreceptor cells in mature neural retina, so that the effective in-vitro amplification method can promote cell therapy based on stem/precursor cell transplantation.

The invention belongs to the pharmaceutical field and relates to an application of 7,8-dihydroxyflavone (DHF) to preparation of a drug for treating retinal degenerative diseases. Through adult SD rat optic nerve contusion model experiments, the results show that 7,8-DHF can achieve the effects of reducing apoptosis of retinal ganglion cells and increasing the survival rate and has obvious protective effects on injured retinal neurons. 7,8-DHF is used for further treating the retinal degenerative diseases by protecting the injured retinal neurons, wherein the retinal degenerative diseases include glaucoma, macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, ischemic optic neuropathy and traumatic optic nerve contusion. The invention also provides a novel small molecular drug preparation with 7,8-DHF as the main active ingredient. Obvious protective effects can be generated for the injured retinal neurons by locally delivering the drug to the vitreous cavities of eyes.

This invention relates to an agent for the protection of retinal neurons which comprises, as an effective ingredient, sulfamate derivative having the following formula: and to a method for the protection of retinal neurons by using said sulfamate derivative.

The invention discloses a retinal neuron coding method based on a convolutional neural network. The method comprises the following steps: S1, obtaining ganglion cell stimulation data and correspondingresponse data; S2, constructing a CNN model for training, including the following steps: S21, inputting ganglion cell stimulation data into a first convolution layer; S22, inputting the output of thefirst convolution layer into a second convolution layer; S23, inputting the output of the second convolution layer into a full connection layer; S24, comparing the output with the response data, andoptimizing the output of the CNN model; and S3, predicting response data of ganglion cells through the trained CNN model; the CNN model is selected because the CNN model has strong nonlinear computingpower, through experiments, when the convolution layer of the CNN model is 2, the effect is the best, only one output neuron exists in a full connection layer, and information is corrected through anactivation function.