41 results about "Retinal stimulation" patented technology

A visible and infrared light powered retinal implant is disclosed that is implanted into the subretinal space for electrically inducing formed vision in the eye. The retinal implant includes a stacked microphotodetector arrangement having an image sensing pixel layer and a voltage and current gain adjustment layer for providing variable voltage and current gain to the implant so as to obtain better low light implant performance than the prior art, and to compensate for high retinal stimulation thresholds present in some retinal diseases. A first light filter is positioned on one of the microphotodetectors in each of the image sensing pixels of the implant, and a second light filter is positioned on the other of the microphotodetectors in the image sensing pixel of the implant, each of the microphotodetectors of the pixel to respond to a different wavelength of light to produce a sensation of darkness utilizing the first wavelength, and a sensation of light using the second wavelength, and a third light filter is positioned on a portion of the voltage and current gain adjustment layer that is exposed to light, to allow adjustment of the implant voltage and current gain of the device by use of a third wavelength of light.

A flexible circuit electrode array with more than one layer of metal traces comprising: a polymer base layer; more than one layer of metal traces, separated by polymer layers, deposited on said polymer base layer, including electrodes suitable to stimulate neural tissue; and a polymer top layer deposited on said polymer base layer and said metal traces. Polymer materials are useful as electrode array bodies for neural stimulation. They are particularly useful for retinal stimulation to create artificial vision, cochlear stimulation to create artificial hearing, or cortical stimulation many purposes. The pressure applied against the retina, or other neural tissue, by an electrode array is critical. Too little pressure causes increased electrical resistance, along with electric field dispersion. Too much pressure may block blood flow.

An object is to provide an electrode member for retina stimulation which can form an actually transmitted image without pressing the retina in an excessively broad range and to provide an artificial retina device using the electrode member. An electrode member includes electrodes disposed in a shape of a vertical and horizontal matrix, a support holding each electrode at a predetermined position, and a fixing pin fixing four comers of the support to a sclera. Each electrode projects in the shape of a needle from an opposed face of the support toward a retina. The fixing pin is provided with a positioning projection allowing a distal end of each electrode to come into contact with retinal bipolar cells and limiting the overall opposed face to come into contact with a retina when the support is fixed to the retina.

Polymer materials are useful as electrode array bodies for neural stimulation. They are particularly useful for retinal stimulation to create artificial vision, cochlear stimulation to create artificial hearing, and cortical stimulation, and many related purposes. The pressure applied against the retina, or other neural tissue, by an electrode array is critical. Too little pressure causes increased electrical resistance, along with electric field dispersion. Too much pressure may block blood flow. Common flexible circuit fabrication techniques generally require that a flexible circuit electrode array be made flat. Since neural tissue is almost never flat, a flat array will necessarily apply uneven pressure. Further, the edges of a flexible circuit polymer array may be sharp and cut the delicate neural tissue. By applying the right amount of heat to a completed array, a curve can be induced. With a thermoplastic polymer it may be further advantageous to repeatedly heat the flexible circuit in multiple molds, each with a decreasing radius. Further, it is advantageous to add material along the edges. It is further advantageous to provide a fold or twist in the flexible circuit array. Additional material may be added inside and outside the fold to promote a good seal with tissue.

An artificial retina device and a retinal stimulation system and method for stimulating and modulating its function is disclosed. The artificial retina device includes multi-phasic microphotodiode subunits. In persons suffering from blindness due to outer retinal layer damage, a plurality of such devices, when surgically implanted into the subretinal space, may allow useful formed artificial vision to develop. By projecting real or computer controlled visible light images, and computer controlled infrared light images or illumination, simultaneously or in rapid alternation onto the artificial retina device, the nature of induced retinal images may be modulated and improved. The retinal stimulation system may be worn as a headset. Color images may be induced by programming the stimulating pulse durations and frequencies of the stimulation.

The invention discloses an EOG (Electrooculography)-based ERG (Electroretinography) signal acquisition and processing system and method. The system comprises a control unit, a retinal stimulator unit, an ERG signal acquisition unit and an ERG signal processing unit. The method comprises the following steps: adjusting illumination and flash rate of a stimulation light source; arranging three skin electrodes on the forehead just above eyes of a subject, on the inner sides of the eyes and the bridge of a nose and at eyelids respectively; performing dark adaptation for more than 20 minutes; aligning the eyes of the subject to the stimulation light source; acquiring an EOG signal; performing light stimulation on the eyes of the subject, synchronously acquiring the ERG signals on the inner sides of the eyes and the bridge of the nose and at the eyelids of the subject respectively, and storing after signal conditioning and AD (Analog-Digital) conversion; reading the ERG signals by an ERG signal processing and analysis unit and processing and analyzing the ERG signal. The ERG signals are acquired by using the external skin electrodes, so that the acquisition is more convenient and safer, and the cost is lower; for signal processing, the adopted method is small in operation and high in feasibility and can realize rapid signal processing.

The invention relates to a wide-field retina microelectrode array. The technical scheme includes that an electrode array portion is composed of a soft polyester substrate and a retina stimulating electrode array, the stimulating electrode array is embedded in the soft polyester substrate and is rectangular, the length of the stimulating electrode array in the horizontal direction is longer than that in the vertical direction, a fixing hole is arranged on the soft polyester substrate, a leading-out portion of the electrode array is composed of a soft polyester substrate and an electrode lead which is embedded on the soft polyester substrate, an external electrical stimulation lattice portion is composed of an external electrical stimulation portion substrate and an external stimulation lattice, the external stimulation lattice is embedded on the soft polyester substrate, and the stimulating electrode array is connected with the external stimulation lattice through the electrode lead. According to the wide-field retina microelectrode array, the electrode array which is arranged in a rectangular mode is used, and the length of the stimulating electrode array in the horizontal direction is longer than that in the vertical direction, so that a plurality of cone cells and rod cells can be stimulated in the horizontal direction, the wide view field in the horizontal direction can be provided, and simultaneously, the difficulty in processing of the microelectrode array is not increased.

The invention discloses an artificial retina stimulating electrode and a manufacturing method therefor. The simulating electrode comprises an electrode head portion, a thin portion, an electrode body portion and a connection portion. The electrode head portion comprises an elliptical flexible substrate, a first fixing nail, a second fixing nail, a contact electrode and a wire electrode connected to the contact electrode, and the electrode wire penetrates the thin portion, the electrode body portion and the connection portion. The thin portion is connected to the electrode head portion. The electrode body portion is connected to the thin portion. The connection portion is connected to the electrode body portion via a circular bead, and comprises a conical portion, a triangular portion a loop electrode and a loop wire electrode connected to the loop electrode. The artificial retina stimulating electrode can make contact with a macula lutea zone of the retina, the effect of simulation is good, the size of the artificial retina stimulating electrode is small, so the artificial retina stimulating electrode can be implanted in the eye through a small incision, so the artificial retina stimulating electrode is convenient to implant and fix with a small incision.

Apparatus is provided including an implantable retinal stimulator, for implantation on a retina of an eye, and including (i) an electrode array including electrodes; (ii) a plurality of photosensors; and (iii) driving circuitry, configured to drive the electrodes to apply currents to the retina. The apparatus further includes an interface member disposed at an outer surface of the implantable retinal stimulator, e.g., a peripheral member surrounding at least a portion of the implantable retinal stimulator. The apparatus additionally includes a frame, (i) shaped and sized to couple to the peripheral member and to surround the implantable retinal stimulator at least in part, and (ii) shaped to define at least a first anchoring element receiving portion. An anchoring element is shaped and sized to be positioned in the anchoring element receiving portion and to penetrate scleral tissue of the subject. Other applications are also described.

The invention discloses retina stimulation equipment based on two-dimensional array probes, and the equipment comprises a lens frame and the two-dimensional array probes, wherein the two-dimensional array probes are installed in the lens frame, and the lens frame is provided with a camera device, an integrated circuit, and a power supply. Coupling parts are disposed between the two-dimensional array probes and eyes. The camera device is used for collecting image information and transmitting the image information to the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit is used for converting the image information into an electric signal and transmitting the electric signal to the two-dimensional array probes. The two-dimensional array probes are used for generating ultrasound under the excitation of the electric signal, and achieving the ultrasonic stimulation of the retinas. The power supply is used for supplying power to the camera device and the integrated circuit. After a dysopia person wears the equipment, the integrated circuit enables the image information collected by the camera device to be converted into the electric signal, and the electric signal is used for the excitation of the two-dimensional array probes, thereby forming a focused sound beam with a plurality of focuses. The ultrasound acts on optic nerve cells, and enables the dysopia person to sense the image information, and to recover the visual sensing function.

The present invention provides an image processing method of a retinal stimulator. The retinal stimulator has a prescribed number of stimulation electrodes, which is characterized in that: an image acquisition step for acquiring an initial image; Grayscale step of grayscale processing an initial image to obtain a grayscale image; low pixelation step of performing compression processing on pixels of the gray image to obtain a low pixel gray image, wherein the number of pixels of the low pixel gray image is less than or equal to a predetermined number of stimulation electrodes; And a binarization step for binarizing the low-pixel gray-scale image to obtain a binary image, wherein the stimulation electrode generates an electrical stimulation signal according to the binary image. According tothe present disclosure, more image useful information can be provided by optimizing the processing of captured images.

The invention discloses a retina stimulation apparatus and a manufacturing method thereof The apparatus comprises a pixel unit, a power supply module and a flexible package. The pixel unit and power supply module are disposed on and covered by the flexible package, and the power supply module can supply power to the pixel unit after being charged. Each pixel unit comprises a photosensor, a signal processing and driving unit and a stimulating electrode. The photosensor detects an incident light and provides a sensing signal to the signal processing and driving unit, and the processing unit generates a stimulation signal with an appropriate waveform to the stimulating electrode according to the sensing signal. Through the stimulating electrode, a stimulation current is used to stimulate retina ganglion cells.

The present invention provides a visual prosthesis comprising: image capture means for capturing an image from a surrounding environment; image processing means for processing the image and converting the image into a transmissible image signal; signal processing means for processing and converting the image signal into a stimulation signal; and a retina stimulation device (10) adapted to stimulate the retina of both left and right eyes in accordance with the stimulation signal. The retina stimulation device (10) comprises a left-side stimulation unit (11) having an electrode array (12) for stimulating the retina of the left eye, and a right-side stimulation unit (11′) having an electrode array (12′) for stimulating the retina of the right eye, with the left-side stimulation unit (11) having a configuration which is reversed with respect to a configuration of the right-side stimulation unit (11′). Furthermore, the electrode array (12) has a plurality of individual electrodes (15) distributed in a predetermined pattern across a substrate (16) of the electrode array for stimulating the nerve cells of the retina. The electrode array substrate (16) is elongate in a lateral or transverse direction, namely in a medial-lateral direction with respect to an implantation orientation, such that the electrode array has a height-to-width ratio of less than 1, preferably less than 0.8, more preferably in the range of 0.6 to 0.2, and most preferably in the range of about 0.5 to about 0.3.

The invention belongs to the field of integrated circuits and biomedicine, and particularly relates to a flexible artificial retina stimulation chip. The chip can convert an optical signal into an electric signal and stimulate optic nerves to form vision, is made of a flexible film material and is suitable for a human body. The circuit is a retinal stimulation unit array and comprises m rows and ncolumns of stimulation units, a digital-to-analog converter and two constant bias circuits. Each stimulation unit is used for carrying out time division multiplexing on an output signal of the digital-to-analog converter by adopting an analog random access memory (ARM, AnalogRandom Access Memory) and a time sequence control circuit (Time Control), so as to adjust the conducting state of a transistor in the stimulation unit and stimulate the perception of a human body to an optical signal. The digital-to-analog converter has 8-bit resolution and is high in control precision. And time sequencesare provided among the stimulation units by adopting the time sequence control circuit. The chip can provide help for visually impaired people to recover vision.

The invention discloses an artificial retinal stimulation amplitude frequency control method and system based on depth vision. The method comprises the following steps: collecting scene images in front by two cameras arranged side by side and horizontally on the same vertical plane; generating a two-dimensional depth map with scene depth information by two frames of scene images collected by two cameras are synchronized, and the two-dimensional depth map with scene gray level information and depth information is abstracted and outputted. If gray level information is selected, encoding of the electrode stimulation is generated according to the surface gray level information of the observation object; if the user selects the depth information, generating an encoding of the electrode stimulation according to the surface distance of the observation object. The present invention can visually give a blind person using an artificial retinal system the ability to perceive the distance of an object.