Page 361 - Handbook of Biomechatronics

CHAPTER TEN

Current Advances in the Design

of Retinal and Cortical

Visual Prostheses

,†
Lilach Bareket*, Alejandro Barriga-Rivera* , Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld ‡,§,¶ ,
Nigel H. Lovell , Gregg J. Suaning*
k
*Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
†
Division of Neuroscience, University Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain
‡
Monash Institute of Medical Engineering and Department of Surgery, Monash University, Clayton,
VIC, Australia
§
Department of Neurosurgery, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
¶
Department of Surgery, F. Edward H ebert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda,
MD, United States
Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
k
Contents
1 Introduction 355
2 Current Retinal Implant Technologies 359
2.1 Epiretinal Implants 362
2.2 Subretinal Implants 365
2.3 Suprachoroidal Implants 367
2.4 Intrascleral Implants 371
3 Current Visual Cortex Implant Technologies 372
4 ON and LGN Prostheses 376
5 Engineering Considerations for Cortical and Retinal Stimulation 379
5.1 Placement and Fixation of Retinal and Cortical Electrode Arrays 380
5.2 Parameters for Retinal and Cortical Stimulation 383
6 Conclusions and Perspectives 385
References 390

1 INTRODUCTION

Low vision and ultimately profound blindness may be caused due to
damage or alterations at different locations along the visual pathway from the
eye to the brain including the retina, optic nerve (ON), lateral geniculate
nucleus (LGN), and visual cortex. The US Social Security Administration
(SSA) defines “Legal blindness” as central visual acuity (VA) of less than

Handbook of Biomechatronics © 2019 Elsevier Inc. 355
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812539-7.00005-2 All rights reserved.