Development of fully-implanted low-power retinal prosthesis system with visual information processing functions

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24246060
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Electron device/Electronic equipment
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: TANAKA Tetsu 東北大学, 医工学研究科, 教授 (40417382)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KIYOYAMA Kouji 長崎総合科学大学, 工学部, 准教授 (60412722) ; TOMITA Hiroshi 岩手大学, 工学部, 教授 (40302088) ; FUKUSHIMA Takafumi 東北大学, 未来科学技術共同研究センター, 准教授 (10374969) ; KOYANAGI Mitsumasa 東北大学, 未来科学技術共同研究センター, 教授 (60205531)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 人工網膜 / 視覚情報処理 / 三次元集積回路 / 半導体神経工学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In order to restore visual sensation of blind patients such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, a fully implantable retinal prosthesis system have been developed in this research. The fully implantable retinal prosthesis system consists of an intraocular and extraocular units. The intraocular unit has a coupling coil, a stimulus electrode array, and a 3-D stacked retinal prosthesis chip. The 3-D stacked retinal prosthesis chip is composed of a photoreceptor chip and a stimulus current generator chip. In this research, the photoreceptor chip was successfully developed with a switching photosensitivity function, and the stimulus current generator chip was also successfully developed with an edge enhancement function. Both chips has 37x37 pixels.
The retinal prosthesis chip assembled with the flexible cable was completely implanted into a rabbit eyeball, and appropriate EEP waveforms were successfully recorded with incidents of light from outside the eyeball.

Free Research Field

半導体工学　神経工学