Photovoltaic restoration of sight with high visual acuity

Henri Lorach; Georges Goetz; Richard Smith; Xin Lei; Yossi Mandel; Theodore Kamins; Keith Mathieson; Philip Huie; James Harris; Alexander Sher; Daniel Palanker

doi:10.1038/nm.3851

Photovoltaic restoration of sight with high visual acuity

Nat Med. 2015 May;21(5):476-82. doi: 10.1038/nm.3851. Epub 2015 Apr 27.

Authors

Henri Lorach¹, Georges Goetz², Richard Smith³, Xin Lei⁴, Yossi Mandel⁵, Theodore Kamins⁴, Keith Mathieson⁶, Philip Huie⁷, James Harris⁴, Alexander Sher³, Daniel Palanker⁷

Affiliations

¹ 1] Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. [2] Department of Ophthalmology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. [3] Inserm UMR_S968, Institut de la Vision, Paris, France.
² 1] Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. [2] Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
³ Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA.
⁴ Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
⁵ The Mina &Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar Ilan University, Israel.
⁶ Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK.
⁷ 1] Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. [2] Department of Ophthalmology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.

PMID: 25915832
PMCID: PMC4601644
DOI: 10.1038/nm.3851

Abstract

Patients with retinal degeneration lose sight due to the gradual demise of photoreceptors. Electrical stimulation of surviving retinal neurons provides an alternative route for the delivery of visual information. We demonstrate that subretinal implants with 70-μm-wide photovoltaic pixels provide highly localized stimulation of retinal neurons in rats. The electrical receptive fields recorded in retinal ganglion cells were similar in size to the natural visual receptive fields. Similarly to normal vision, the retinal response to prosthetic stimulation exhibited flicker fusion at high frequencies, adaptation to static images and nonlinear spatial summation. In rats with retinal degeneration, these photovoltaic arrays elicited retinal responses with a spatial resolution of 64 ± 11 μm, corresponding to half of the normal visual acuity in healthy rats. The ease of implantation of these wireless and modular arrays, combined with their high resolution, opens the door to the functional restoration of sight in patients blinded by retinal degeneration.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Angiography
Animals
Electric Stimulation
Electrophysiological Phenomena
Female
Fluorescein / chemistry
Lasers
Male
Neurons / metabolism
Neurons / physiology*
Photochemistry / methods*
Prostheses and Implants
Rats
Retina / metabolism
Retinal Degeneration / therapy*
Retinal Ganglion Cells / cytology*
Retinal Neurons / metabolism
Spectrophotometry, Infrared
Vision, Ocular / physiology*
Visual Acuity / physiology*

Substances

Fluorescein

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

Grants and funding