Adjusting the parameters of electrical stimulation of retinal ganglion cells to reduce neural adaptation and improve efficacy of retinal prostheses

Abstract

Retinal prostheses aim to provide visual percepts through electrical stimulation of the retina to blind people affected by diseases caused by photoreceptor degeneration. Two challenges presented by current devices are a lack of selectivity in the activation of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and neural adaptation in the retina, which is believed to be the cause of fading—an effect where artificially produced percepts disappear over a short period of time, despite continuous stimulation of the retina. We aim to (1) understand the neural adaptation generated in RGCs during electrical stimulation, (2) obtain the preferred stimulation parameters (waveform) of each morphological class of RGCs and (..