High-fidelity reproduction of spatiotemporal visual signals for retinal prosthesis

Retinal Remodeling: Concerns, Emerging Remedies and Future Prospects

Deafferentation results not only in sensory loss, but also in a variety of alterations in the postsynaptic circuitry. These alterations may have detrimental impact on potential treatment strategies. Progressive loss of photoreceptors in retinal degenerative diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, leads to several changes in the remnant retinal circuitry. Müller glial cells undergo hypertrophy and form a glial seal. The second- and third-order retinal neurons undergo morphological, biochemical and physiological alterations. A result of these alterations is that retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), the output neurons of the retina, become hyperactive and exhibit spontaneous, oscillatory bursts of spikes. This aberrant electrical activity degrades the signal-to-noise ratio in RGC responses, and thus the quality of information they transmit to the brain. These changes in the remnant retina, collectively termed “retinal remodeling”, pose challenges for genetic, cellular and bionic approaches to restore vision. It is therefore crucial to understand the nature of retinal remodeling, how it affects the ability of remnant retina to respond to novel therapeutic strategies, and how to ameliorate its effects. In this article, we discuss these topics, and suggest that the pathological state of the retinal output following photoreceptor loss is reversible, and therefore, amenable to restorative strategies.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Light

UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) has declared 2015 the "International Year of Light and Light-Based Technologies". In celebration of this proclamation, this Outlook provides a general history of light and its applications, from the earliest moments of the Big Bang through its present impact on all forms of life on the planet. Special emphasis is placed on fundamental advances in the generation and use of artificial light, as well as the harvesting and use of light from the Sun and other natural sources. During the past century, the role of light in the fields of physics, chemistry, and biology has expanded to include emerging fields such as environmental engineering, agriculture, materials science, and biomedicine. In this regard, future research challenges and new potential applications in these areas, in the context of "the central science", are presented and discussed.

Spike history neural response model

There is a potential for improved efficacy of neural stimulation if stimulation levels can be modified dynamically based on the responses of neural tissue in real time. A neural model is developed that describes the response of neurons to electrical stimulation and that is suitable for feedback control neuroprosthetic stimulation. Experimental data from NZ white rabbit retinae is used with a data-driven technique to model neural dynamics. The linear-nonlinear approach is adapted to incorporate spike history and to predict the neural response of ganglion cells to electrical stimulation. To validate the fitness of the model, the penalty term is calculated based on the time difference between each simulated spike and the closest spike in time in the experimentally recorded train. The proposed model is able to robustly predict experimentally observed spike trains.

Cell-type-specific electric stimulation for vision restoration

In this issue of Neuron, Jepson et al. (2014) demonstrate that electric stimulation of primate ON parasol ganglion cells evokes spiking patterns similar to those elicited by visual motion. This work represents progress in the development of cell-type-specific retinal prosthetics for vision restoration.