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IMPLANTED DEVICES

Selective activation of the visual cortex

Nature Biomedical Engineering volume 4, pages 139–141 (2020)Cite this article

Subjects

An electrode array implanted into the optic nerve of rabbits selectively activates discrete regions of the primary visual cortex.

Microelectronic devices that can restore functional vision to the blind have long been sought. Inspired by the successes of cochlear prostheses and deep-brain stimulators, visual prostheses that target nearly every stage of the early visual pathway1 — in particular, the retina, the optic nerve, the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus and the primary visual cortex (V1) — have either been developed or are in development. Retinal implants have been the primary focus to date, and several devices have been released commercially. Unfortunately, the level of functional vision that they provide remains limited, and multiple commercially released devices have been discontinued. Regardless, retinal prostheses are suitable for only a limited segment of the blind population, and even a high-functioning device would not be useful in cases where the damage to the retina is severe (as in end-stage glaucoma or traumatic eye injury) or when the damage is further downstream. In such cases, implanting the device at a later stage of the visual pathway offers an option for treatment. In this regard, the optic nerve is attractive because its relatively small diameter facilitates the electrical stimulation of a much wider visual field, and the implantation of a device on or within the optic nerve should be simpler than for locations further downstream. However, because over one million axon fibres are confined to a diameter of a few millimetres, achieving even moderate acuity with electrical stimulation is challenging.

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Fig. 1: An electrode array implanted into the optic nerve of rabbits selectively activates discrete regions of V1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Boston VA Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA

    Shelley I. Fried

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Shelley I. Fried

  3. Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales, Australia

    Mohit N. Shivdasani

  4. Bionics Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Mohit N. Shivdasani

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  1. Shelley I. Fried
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  2. Mohit N. Shivdasani
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Correspondence to Shelley I. Fried.

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Fried, S.I., Shivdasani, M.N. Selective activation of the visual cortex. Nat Biomed Eng 4, 139–141 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-020-0519-8

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