Seeing the light: a photonic visual prosthesis for the blind

Patrick Degenaar; Nir Grossman; Brian McGovern; Mark Neil; Emmanuel Drakakis; Konstantin Nikolic

doi:10.1117/12.823577

23 February 2009 Seeing the light: a photonic visual prosthesis for the blind

Patrick Degenaar, Nir Grossman, Brian McGovern, Mark Neil, Emmanuel Drakakis, Konstantin Nikolic

Proceedings Volume 7180, Photons and Neurons; 71800I (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.823577
Event: SPIE BiOS, 2009, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

This paper highlights how the genetic incorporation of artificial opsins into the retina can lead to a new class of retinal prosthesis. We demonstrate the efficacy of incorporating channelrhodopsin into neuron cells in-vitro and show how that can be scaled to in-vivo. We show that we need typically 100mW/cm² of instantaneous light intensity on the neuron in order to stimulate action potentials which results in 10W/cm² required from the light source. We thus use GaN LED arrays to provide spatially controlled stimulation which is of sufficient brightness to stimulate the cells.

Citation Download Citation

Patrick Degenaar, Nir Grossman, Brian McGovern, Mark Neil, Emmanuel Drakakis, and Konstantin Nikolic "Seeing the light: a photonic visual prosthesis for the blind", Proc. SPIE 7180, Photons and Neurons, 71800I (23 February 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.823577

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