01-03-2009, 01:27 PM
Visual Neuro Prosthetics
Recent technological breakthroughs in materials and micro fabrication technologies afford neurosurgeons ophthalmologists and engineers the opportunity to reconsider the prospect of providing a useful visual sense to the profoundly blind. This will be accomplished by electrically stimulating their visual systems via an array of implanted electrodes, which can be safely implanted into the visual parts of the brain with little significant long term consequences.
Preliminary experiments have provided blind volunteers with rudimentary visual sensations. Neural cells possess sensitive electrochemical transduction capabilities that could be useful in constructing cell-based biosensors. Previous studies on the neuron-electronics interface emphasize the importance of a tight coupling in optimizing signal recording. In the present study, the intention was to improve the neuron-electronic interface coupling by mimicking the cell-substratum interactions found in v attachment-promoting laminin subdomains in the extracellular matrix were utilized to enhance cell-electrode coupling. They were immobilized on gold substrates, and their presence was verified.
They were immobilized on gold substrates, and their presence was verified with surface analysis A significant increase in neural cell attachment efficacy was observed on peptide-modified substrates as compared to the unmodified ones. In this communication, we report results obtained with a biochip prototype that was constructed wit attachment-promoting peptides on the microelectrodes. Strong signals were obtained. The results of this study would be useful in the development of biological neural networks and bio electronic device
Recent technological breakthroughs in materials and micro fabrication technologies afford neurosurgeons ophthalmologists and engineers the opportunity to reconsider the prospect of providing a useful visual sense to the profoundly blind. This will be accomplished by electrically stimulating their visual systems via an array of implanted electrodes, which can be safely implanted into the visual parts of the brain with little significant long term consequences.
Preliminary experiments have provided blind volunteers with rudimentary visual sensations. Neural cells possess sensitive electrochemical transduction capabilities that could be useful in constructing cell-based biosensors. Previous studies on the neuron-electronics interface emphasize the importance of a tight coupling in optimizing signal recording. In the present study, the intention was to improve the neuron-electronic interface coupling by mimicking the cell-substratum interactions found in v attachment-promoting laminin subdomains in the extracellular matrix were utilized to enhance cell-electrode coupling. They were immobilized on gold substrates, and their presence was verified.
They were immobilized on gold substrates, and their presence was verified with surface analysis A significant increase in neural cell attachment efficacy was observed on peptide-modified substrates as compared to the unmodified ones. In this communication, we report results obtained with a biochip prototype that was constructed wit attachment-promoting peptides on the microelectrodes. Strong signals were obtained. The results of this study would be useful in the development of biological neural networks and bio electronic device