Mechanical Stimulation of the Retina: Therapeutic Feasibility and Cellular Mechanism

IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering : a Publication of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
Corey M RountreeLaxman Saggere

Abstract

Retinal prostheses that seek to restore vision by artificially stimulating retinal neurons with electrical current are an emerging treatment for photoreceptor degenerative diseases but face difficulties achieving naturalistic vision with high spatial resolution. Here, we report the unexpected discovery of a technique for mechanically stimulating retinal neurons with the potential to bypass the limitations of electrical stimulation. We found that pulsatile injections of standard Ames medium solution into explanted retinas of wild type rats under certain injection conditions (pulse-width > 50ms at 0.69 kPa pressure) elicit spatially localized retinal responses similar to light-evoked responses. The same injections made into photoreceptor degenerated retinas of transgenic S334ter-3 rats also elicit robust neural responses. We investigated the cellular mechanism causing these responses, by repeating the injections after treating the retinas with a pharmacological blocker of the transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV) channel group, a common mechanoreceptor found on retinal neurons, and observed a significant reduction in retinal ganglion cell spike rate response amplitudes. Together, these data reveal that therapeutic mechani...Continue Reading

References

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Citations

Oct 16, 2019·Frontiers in Neuroscience·Marica MarreseLuca Berdondini
May 14, 2021·Journal of Neural Engineering·Sai Siva KareLaxman Saggere

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