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. 2014:2014:6100-3.
doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2014.6945021.

A multi-scale computational model for the study of retinal prosthetic stimulation

Kyle Loizos, Gianluca Lazzi, J Scott Lauritzen, James Anderson, Bryan W Jones, Robert Marc

A multi-scale computational model for the study of retinal prosthetic stimulation

Kyle Loizos et al. Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2014.

Abstract

An implantable retinal prosthesis has been developed to restore vision to patients who have been blinded by degenerative diseases that destroy photoreceptors. By electrically stimulating the surviving retinal cells, the damaged photoreceptors may be bypassed and limited vision can be restored. While this has been shown to restore partial vision, the understanding of how cells react to this systematic electrical stimulation is largely unknown. Better predictive models and a deeper understanding of neural responses to electrical stimulation is necessary for designing a successful prosthesis. In this work, a computational model of an epi-retinal implant was built and simulated, spanning multiple spatial scales, including a large-scale model of the retina and implant electronics, as well as underlying neuronal networks.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Diagram of multi-scale model, including (a) 3D plot of the discretized model of the retina with an electrode array and (b) top and side-view plots of the morphology of a neural network considered for simulation, including two ON ganglion cells and 60 cone bipolar cells.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Example 2D slice of a meshed model [4], including (a) an unmeshed slice of a model, using uniform cubic voxels, and (b) the same model after applying the multiresolution meshing algorithm with maximum size of 8 voxels per cell.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Diagram of the link between the admittance method results and NEURON. An extracellular voltage for each compartment (V) is estimated by 3D linear interpolation of the voltages at the nearest surrounding nodes from the admittance method simulation results.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Simulation results. (a) Reference 2D slice, (b) Electric field magnitude at one time step during an admittance method simulation, (c–e) Color-coded membrane potential on a single ganglion and bipolar cell at 1, 3, and 5 milliseconds, respectively.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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